Is Aishwarya Rai compromising with her fee for Sanjay Gupta’s Jazba?

With huge budget films failing to create any wonders at the box-office, many megastars are finding themselves in hot waters. Current reportage indicated Saif Ali Khan’s clear willingness to slash his pay in the repercussion of Happy Ending’s unfortunate performance. With such trying times looming large, we wondered if it would be easy for Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who is making her comeback with Jazba to demand her ‘Once upon a time’ market fee.

Producer-director Sanjay Gupta, on the other hand, clears the air. “Why should Aishwarya take a pay-cut. There is no question of she taking any pay cut. Why will she take a pay cut? Today the films are not failing, it is always the budget. The satellite market has also crashed so there is no production happening. Four or five of the biggest studios don’t have a single film on floors right now. So there is trouble in paradise right now,” tells Sanjay

Elaborating on how losses can be optimized, Sanjay reveals, “From all the duds of last year, the studio has lost an X amount. Take the ATL (Above The Line) payment of the movie. The ATL is the main star cast and the director. Cut the ATL by half and the studio will face no loss.”

The filmmaker also believes in not overpaying his stars. “The only place we are going wrong is when we are overpaying. My theory is don’t overpay and don’t underpay, too. I am ready to pay your normal fee and then take the extra money from the profit. I wouldn’t want to take the first share from its profit. I would let the star have the first share as without the star my film would have never been made in the first case. So, all I am telling stars is, take money from my profit and not pocket.”

Jazba, as Sanjay puts it, is a commercial film starring four big stars, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Irrfan Khan, Shabana Azmi and Anupam Kher.