Market forces will dictate star prices
The recent box-office returns of some of the latest films have proved that the prices of stars far exceed their capacity to draw initials. “If the stars cannot pull in the crowd, as they are expected to do, why hire them for the astronomical sums they demand?" producers ask. Most producers are hesitant and have slowed down their production activities and are maintaining a wait and watch policy, biding their time to see if the trend set by the stars will change.

As a result, most of the stars who hopped from set to set until recently, apportioning whatever little time they could give to their producers, are today not as busy as they used to be. The queue of producers waiting to sign them on is gradually dwindling. Consequently, word has gone round in the industry that, in order to get over their enforced idleness, some of the stars have decided to slash their prices and some are even rumoured to have done so already.

But the truth, according to the industry’s established producers, is that no star has cut down their prices. “It’s loose talk,” they quip. One of them, Sultan Ahmed, is even sure that producers with respectable banners are not shying away from stars even now. “They are signing them on their own terms, as before, and no star is complaining,” he says. As regards the producers grumbling about the star prices, Ahmed, who is also the president of the Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association (IMPPA), finds it a bit distasteful. “Who hiked their prices in the first place and who complied with the demand made on them by the stars without a murmur of protest ? It’s mean of producers who are seeking to find fault with the star prices now that some of the films featuring these stars are not faring well at the box-office. After one has willingly paid the stars their prices, even jacking them up at times out of one-upmanship, one has no business to complain. And, by the way, who are these producers ? Nine out of ten of them are fly-by-night producers whose idea of making films is to make a quick buck and disappear from the scene. The stars know the worth of these producers and they extract the most out of them,” he observes. N.N. Sippy, another veteran producer, concurs. While maintaining this, both Ahmed and Sippy, however, remind that they are not exonerating the present lot of younger stars for their reckless behaviour. “It’s true the star prices have gone beyond limit and something needs to be done about it. But prices will not come down just because we have asked for it. I think, in the ultimate analysis, the market forces alone will decide who deserves how much. If I am not mistaken, stars are already feeling the pulls of the market,” says Sippy.