Rajesh Khanna’s Highest Paid Salary Adjusted To Today’s Inflation Is Just 6% Of Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan Salary & Less Than What Deepika Padukone Earned!

Are Bollywood actors overpriced? The debate has been done many times, with producers like Mukesh Bhatt slamming the studio system and producers like Bhushan Kumar and Anurag Kashyap blaming the actors for being overpaid! 100 crore is the basic minimum for A-list actors these days. But do you know how much did the 60s, 70s, and 80s superstar Rajesh Khanna charge for each film?

Khanna was at his peak when he gave a box office miracle like Aradhna. However, his fee for the film was merely 10 lakh according to various reports. However, his asking rate increased exponentially with every hit film he delivered. He charged between 25 – 20 lakh for films he did in the later 70s. He was the highest-paid superstar until the early 80s and was charging 70 lakhs for each film.

Now, if you compare the superstar of the 80s to today, you’ll understand the math and economics behind it. And the reason why producers are generally miffed with actors’ unreasonable quotes. When Rajesh Khanna’s salary from his last working years, which is reported to be 70 lakh by Indian Express, is adjusted for inflation, it comes to around 12 – 13 crores. Exactly, the highest-paid superstar, yet 12 crores.

Compared to stars of this era, none of the big-budget stars stand close to this figure. While Kartik Aaryan is charging 25 crores for Satyaprem Ki Katha, Ranveer Singh is charged the same price for his last film, Rohit Shetty’s Cirkus. But coming to the biggies, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgn, and Akshay Kumar fall in the 100 crore fee bracket.

Prabhas has joined the club with his upcoming film Adipurush. Quoting one example to understand these numbers better, Shah Rukh Khan took 35 – 40 crores plus 60 percent profit sharing from Pathaan. A recent report claims his remuneration for the film was around 200 crores. Basically, Rajesh Khanna, the biggest superstar of his time, earned only 6% of what the superstars of this age earn!

What’s more interesting is even the actresses are paid more than the Anand actor’s highest drawn salary at his peak! For instance, Deepika Padukone reportedly earned 15 crores for Pathaan! She is the highest-paid actress, according to Siasat Daily, whose fee falls in the bracket of 15 – 30 crores!

Last year, Bhushan Kumar applauded Kartik Aaryan for taking a nominal fee for his film Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, which helped deflate the film’s budget drastically in the post corona era. Once upon a time, even Anurag Kashyap drew attention to the fact that Indian actors like Akshay Kumar are on the Forbes Highest Paid list, along with Hollywood actors. While Bollywood films merely earn 150 – 200 crores (a good film’s average), Hollywood film stats are in billions!

Many producers in the past have raised concerns over superstar fee inflating the film’s overall budget. Recently, even the actors have started taking pay cuts right, from Shahid Kapoor for Jersey to Akshay Kumar for Samrat Prithviraj. Talking about Rajesh Khanna, he even took nominal fee for working on low budget films. A report in Indian Express states that the actor took half of his fees for all the Hrishikesh Mukherjee films he did.

Gulzar once confessed that Rajesh Khanna charged a nominal fee for his film Dard, which got the actor a Filmfare Nomination for Best Actor.

For more such interesting stories and trivia stay tuned to Koimoi.

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