Why should Aishwarya Rai take any pay cuts for Jazba, asks Sanjay Gupta

It's tough times for superstars at the box-office with many of them facing crunch times owing to the dismal performance of their movies. Things have come to such a pass that superstars who delivered duds in the recent past have agreed to slash their price for their upcoming projects. All the more reason why stars making a comeback should be worried. However when the star goes by the name of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan pay can never ever be an issue.

When we asked Sanjay Gupta, director-producer of Jazba if Aishwarya has taken a pay cut, the director shot back asking, “Why should Aishwarya take a pay cut. There is no question of she taking any pay cut. Why will she take a pay cut? Today the films are not failing, it is always the budget that fails. The satellite market has also crashed so there is no production happening. Four or five of the biggest studios don’t have a single film on floors right now. So there is trouble in paradise right now.”

For Sanjay, losses can be stemmed if stars are not overpaid, a fact endorsed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra as well.

Said Sanjay, "From all the duds of last year, the studio has lost an X amount. If you take the ATL(Above The Line) payment of the movie, it would include the main starcast and the director. Cut the ATL by half and the studio will face no loss. The only place we are going wrong is when we are overpaying. I believe in neither overpaying nor underpaying as well. I am ready to pay actors their normal fee and the extra money should be taken from the profit."

The director ideally wants his actors to have the first share on profit. "I wouldn't want to take the first share from its profit. I would let the star have the first share as without the star my film would have never been made in the first case. So all I am telling stars is take money from my profit and not pocket."

Well, if Jazba does hit the bull's eye, Aishwarya will have a lot of extra money to look forward to. Jazba starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Irrfan Khan will go on floors in January next year.