Since the past few weeks, there has been a constant discussion about the rising entourage costs in Bollywood, and several filmmakers and producers like Farah Khan and Anurag Kashyap have talked about it openly. Recently, Anurag Kashyap stated how less money is used to make a project as compared to money spent on the actor’s entourage, and added that the boom in OTT budgets has aided this culture.
During a conversation with Humans of Cinema’s YouTube channel, Anurag mentioned how actors realised their worth after the OTT boom. He said, “For example, I had never seen so many vanity vans on my set like I saw on Sacred Games.” He added, “That’s how the culture got started. Then you can’t reverse that. Finally, those people started getting paid who were totally ignored, which is the technical crew… It’s fair, in a way. But a lot of extra things started coming in.”
He further talked about the trend of big-budget films not working lately, and said that the makers aren’t spending on just the film, but also on the paraphernalia and the entourage. “One thing people need to understand is that when we make a film, we’re working, we’re creating something. It’s not a holiday, it’s not a picnic. A lot of money that is spent doesn’t go into making the film. You’re shooting in the middle of a jungle, but one car will be sent to the city three hours away specifically to get you that five-star burger you want,” he said.
Recently, Farah Khan also discussed the growing costs of an actor entourage in the film industry during Twin Encounter’s episode on Chinki Minki’s YouTube channel. She said, That is a waste of resources. Woh film mein dikhta nahi hai. Woh cost. Toh I think that needs to be controlled a bit. Producers pe bahut bhari padta hain.”
