Veteran producer Vashu Bhagnani, who had paid a bomb to Akshay Kumar for the film Bellbottom, has now paid him an increased amount of Rs 160 crore for his upcoming film Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan (BMCM). The film, which will be directed Ali Abbas Zafar, also stars Tiger Shroff in it.
While the original 1998-film was a comedy starring Amitabh Bachchan and Govinda in lead roles — the redux will be an action comedy, keeping in mind the images of both the actors.
Incidentally, Tiger Shroff who is being paid Rs 50 crore for the two parts of Ganapath, also being bankrolled by Bhagnani, is being paid Rs 40 crore for this film. Director Ali is being paid a handsome amount of Rs 25 crore to direct the venture, say sources.
The trend of upping the money to get dates at the earliest has been used for many years, and the total amount paid to the two actors and the directors is now Rs 225 crore. The film will be made at a cost of Rs 75 crore more, making BMCM the costliest Hindi film till date. What’s more, the two lead stars have already been paid 2/3rds of the total budget of the film.
Veteran film analyst Atul Mohan explains that a part of the recovery for films like Bellbottom, Mission Cinderella (another Akshay film) and BMCM will be taken care of by the UK government’s subsidies.
“The subsidies and VAT relief offered by the UK government is around one third of the budget of the film, which takes care of a lot more than the additional monies being shelled out to the talent. This is a model that many filmmakers use by shooting in Indian states of MP and UP as well. Also Vashu’s recent record of shooting all his films in the UK will help him set the project a lot better,” says our source.
Incidentally, S.S. Rajamouli had said recently that RRR cost Rs 450 crore in the making while pan-India films like the Baahubali series and Radhe Shyam have also been made at huge budgets.
