Bollywood stars & high stakes

Bollywood's all about wheeling-dealing these days, more so than in the past. The industry is buzzing with studios snapping up actors and filmmakers for multiple movie contracts. The new contract system in bollywood has pretty much everyone laughing all the way to the bank.

After much speculation and a long wait, Adlabs has finally signed actor Hrithik Roshan for a three film deal worth Rs 35 crore. Besides the money, the deal will also give Hrithik the liberty to select scripts, directors and even co-stars. Adlabs also has a 10 film deal worth a whopping Rs 200 crore with director Vipul Shah.

Not just Adlabs, almost all the big banners of Bollywood are now on a signing spree. The trend started sometime back when Yashraj Films signed a bunch of new directors to make films for their production house. Currently, Yashraj Films have directors like Kabir Khan, Shaad Ali, Shimit Amin, Siddharth Raj Anand and Arjun Sablok working for them, all on three film contracts.

The other big banner, UTV, has signed up three Bollywood actors. But the buzzword in all these deals is "creative freedom" and "non-exclusivity" for the actors concerned. Actress, Priyanka Chopra told CNBC-TV18, "It's great to be associated with a producer who is willing to give you that much of a say and saying that I don't want to do this or may be we can work something else out. It's great to do that."

With many new entrants in bollywood like Studio18, Mosaer Baer, Frankfinn, money is flowing in the industry. But the people who can deliver success are still few and far between. As a result, the production houses are desperately looking for the right talent. Just one film old, director Sagar Bellary has already signed a 3-film deal with Sahara Motion Pictures after the succes of his debut 'Bheja Fry'.

Filmmaker, Sagar Bellary says, "They have given me complete freedom to go out and make films with other producers in the meanwhile so that my creativity should not be hindered in any way. And that they get good value of those films as well. It's like a healthy kind of thing in the business of filmmaking." 

But with so much of creative freedom being given to the actors and directors, will the role of producers be limted to being just the moneybags? PNC Films, Pritish Nandy says, "We work very hard with the director to make sure the script is perfect and only once we are confident, does the director get full freedom to go out and shoot."

PNC has recently signed actor-director Rajat Kapoor for a five film deal worth Rs 20 crores. For a filmmaker who once had to raise funds for his film Raghu Romeo through the internet, the new flush of money in the industry is good news. But in the fickle world of bollywood, if even one film of say - Hrithik Roshan fails, it remains to be seen if the contracts will be honoured or just thrown out of the window.

Somen Mishra