Filmmaker Anil Sharma is back with ‘Gadar 2’, starring Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel. However, he recently mentioned how speculations of ‘Gadar 2’ costing close to Rs 100 crore are exaggerated, adding how the actual figure is much lower. The filmmaker further credited the support he got from the Indian Army and the Uttar Pradesh government, which kept the costs in check.
In an interview with Lehren Retro, he also talked about Sunny Deol‘s fees, and commented about the bloated budgets of recent tent pole projects, including the Telugu-Hindi mythological epic ‘Adipurush’. The latter came under the scanner for its massive Rs 600 crore budget.
Talking about how the project did not cost between Rs 75 crore and Rs 100 crore to produce, Sharma maintained how he would prefer the studio to comment about these matters. “It was a reasonable budget,” Sharma said, adding, “We really made an effort to control everybody’s fees. Sunny’s fee is what it is, it’s okay, it’s just one person, but even he compromised quite a bit. These days, heroes and directors charge so much, the budgets end up ballooning up to Rs 600 crore, and sometimes the heroes charge Rs 150 crore and Rs 200 crore.”
The filmmaker added how the film’s team decided to spend on the production, and thanked the UP ministry. “We used to block main roads, we blew up real bridges. Imagine. These days, a lot of state governments offer a lot of aid and subsidies to film productions. But I would request the Maharashtra government to also step up,” he said.
‘Gadar 2’ also stars Utkarsh Sharma, and it is the sequel to the blockbuster 2001 epic, which was pitted against the Oscar-nominated ‘Lagaan’ at the time. ‘Gadar 2’ will clash with Akshay Kumar-starrer ‘OMG-2’.
