Veteran filmmaker KC Bokadia has placed the rising cost of star entourages at the centre of Hindi cinema’s budget debate, using three of the industry’s most durable names as the benchmark. Speaking to ANI, he said Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Rajinikanth never expected producers to pay the salaries of their personal staff.
His ask is direct: today’s actors should carry those costs themselves and “have some mercy” on producers before the economics of a shoot turn against the film.
The warning from a producer’s chair
Bokadia’s claim draws on a long directing and producing career across the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, with credits including Aaj Ka Arjun, Phool Bane Angaray and Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam. He has worked with Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Rajinikanth and Jeetendra, which gives his comparison a specific frame: a leaner era of Hindi production against today’s star economy.
He recalled an older shoot in Madras where Jackie Shroff was given a double room instead of a suite. When Bokadia intervened, he said, Shroff was not concerned. The anecdote is less about one room than about a shift in expectations.
Where the money goes
The figures Bokadia cites are stark. He says nobody on a shoot charges less than ₹50,000 a day, some crew and managers charge ₹1–2 lakh, and he has heard of a tea maker and a manager costing ₹1.5 lakh a day. Bokadia attributes some of the specific fees to what he has heard rather than a named production. The direction, though, is consistent: a daily slate now carries overheads that were once negligible.
- Personal staff: Bokadia says older stars paid their own teams; today, he argues, these salaries often land on the producer.
- Vanity vans: Demands have moved from transport to amenity, including gym-equipped vans.
- Crew day rates: He says even basic on-set roles now start around ₹50,000 per day.
Why this matters now
Entourage costs have become one of Hindi cinema’s most persistent production complaints because they are recurring and scale with every schedule change. A delay, an outdoor leg or an extended patch means the cost of vans, staff and daily crew repeats. Bokadia’s framing matters because it shifts the conversation from fees to the contractual and practical costs around the star: who pays them, how many are reasonable, and what is actually needed to make a day work.
His warning, that a producer can be squeezed to the point where a film becomes unviable, echoes an older industry logic: hit films buy freedom, but budgets have to survive the shoot first.
The practical reset
For producers and line producers, Bokadia’s comments point to a simple negotiating stance: define the entourage cap before signing, keep personal staff on the actor’s payroll, and treat vanity vans as a production decision rather than a status default. For actors, the benchmark he names is not about pay cuts; it is about who bears the overhead of the entourage.
That distinction may be the most useful part of the remarks. A star’s fee is a market decision. The cost of the staff that travels with the star, he argues, is a discipline decision.
Source: Hindustan Times
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