Sunny Deol ‘compromised’ on his fees for Gadar 2, says director Anil Sharma: ‘Stars these days charge Rs 150 crore’

Asked about the film’s budget, Anil Sharma said that he would prefer the studio to comment about these matters, but he did deny reports suggesting that Gadar 2 cost between Rs 75 crore and Rs 100 crore to produce. “It was a reasonable budget,” he said in Hindi. When it was pointed out to him that Sunny must’ve charged what he normally does, the director said, “We really made an effort to control everybody’s fees. Sunny’s fees is what it is, it’s okay, it’s just one person, but even he compromised quite a bit. These days, heroes and directors charge so much, the budgets end up ballooning up to Rs 600 crore, and sometimes the heroes charge Rs 150 crore and Rs 200 crore.”

He continued, “We decided to spend on the production. The Army supported us so much, they gave us tanks, locations, soldiers. I’m very thankful to the Army. We shot in UP, we got a lot of help from the ministry there… We used to block main roads, we blew up real bridges. Imagine. These days, a lot of state governments offer a lot of aid and subsidies to film productions. But I would request the Maharashtra government to also step up.”

Gadar 2 also stars Ameesha Patel and Utkarsh Sharma. The film is the sequel to the blockbuster 2001 epic, which ended up making more money than the Oscar-nominated Lagaan, which it was pitted against at the box office. Gadar 2 will clash with Akshay Kumar-starrer OMG-2.