While a lot has been said and written about the rivalry between Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan, the story looks like it's getting more interesting by the day. The recent buzz is that Salman wants to be paid a rupee more for his film with a big production house than what they are paying SRK for his upcoming movie with Katrina Kaif. Surprisingly, this information has come out at a time when SRK has already started shooting for the Yash Chopra film, while Salman has almost finished filming the Kabir Khan directed venture.
Race to the top
"Before Salman committed to the movie, he asked Aditya Chopra to pay him a rupee more than what SRK was being paid for Yashji's film," says our source, adding that Aditya couldn't promise this then as he's also asking for a percentage of the profit as part of his remuneration. "Aditya explained to him that his percentage of profit share depended on how much the film makes on release.
And no one can say for sure whose film will collect how much at the box office." Salman felt relieved when Aditya reassured him that they'd give him as fair a deal as he gets with any other filmmaker. "So Salman need not worry about being shortchanged as compared to SRK," pointed out our source.
Changing terms
Apparently, the three Khans are said to be getting a fixed fee of not less than Rs 15 crore each. "The Chopras weren't known to pay anyone's market price earlier. But with the change in the industry, they've agreed to the fees of the Khans being divided into a fixed amount and a share in the profits," said our informer.
About this, our first source reasons, "With back-to-back Rs 100 crore plus earners like Dabangg, Ready and Bodyguard, Salman knows he's the biggest draw in India. So in keeping with his drawing power at the domestic box-office, if he's asking for a rupee more, he's not being unreasonable. Is he?"
Buzz is that the three Khans are being paid the same fixed fee upfront. However, who earns the most will be seen when the final India net figures are tabled.
Insecure of Aamir too?
Interestingly, there's another angle to this one-upmanship of the fees between the three Khans with reference to their movies with Chopra's production house. Another industry veteran tells us that when Salman was asked to sign the contract for the Kabir Khan film, he asked to see the kind of deal they had worked with Aamir, for their action thriller.
"It seems Salman was keen to see the kind of terms his friend was getting for the action thriller franchisee film that also features Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra," said our source. Not to be left behind, before committing to Yash Chopra's directorial venture with Katrina and Anushka Sharma, SRK wanted to be apprised of the terms and conditions Aamir and Salman had finalised with the banner.
"Considering that SRK has been long associated with the Chopras, he can't afford to let Aamir and Salman get a better deal than him. So he too was signed on for the same terms as Aamir," explains our source.
Rs 1 rules
Not surprisingly, ego issues between stars over money matters are not new. Industry sources tell us that the demand for a rupee more were first made many years ago. Apparently, Manmohan Desai was once confronted with this dilemma when he cast Amitabh Bachchan and Vinod Khanna in Amar Akbar Anthony. "Their rivalry was at the peak then and each wanted to be paid more than the other. Eventually, Amitabh Bachchan walked off with a fatter pay cheque," says an old source.
Kishore Kumar made no secret of his eccentricities. Known to be a miser, he charged a whopping amount of Rs 15,000 per song back then. However, he took Rs 1 less than what Lata Mangeshkar charged, as a mark of respect towards her.
