Click to play videoMumbai: After much speculation and a long wait, Adlabs has finally signed actor Hrithik Roshan for a three-film deal worth Rs 35 crore. Besides the money, the deal will also give Hrithik the liberty to select scripts, directors and even co-stars.
Not just Adlabs, almost all the big banners of Bollywood are now on a signing spree. The trend started sometime back when Yashraj Films signed a bunch of new directors to make films for their production house.
Currently, Yashraj Films have directors like Kabir Khan, Shaad Ali, Shimit Amin, Siddharth Raj Anand and Arjun Sablok working for them, all on three-film contracts.
Adlabs also has a 10-film deal worth a Rs 200 crore with director Vipul Shah.
The other big banner UTV has signed up three Bollywood actors. But the buzzword in all these deals is "creative freedom" and "non-exclusivity" for the actors concerned.
“It’s great to be associated with a producer who is willing to give you a say. Like if I say that ‘I don’t want to do this or may be we can work something else out’. It’s great to do that,” actor Priyanka Chopra said.
With many new entrants in Bollywood like Studio18, Mosaer Baer and Frankfinn, money is flowing in the industry but the people who can deliver success are still few and far between. As a result the production houses are desperately looking for the right talent.
Just one film old, director Sagar Bellary has already signed a three-film deal with Sahara Motion Pictures after the success of his debut Bheja Fry.
“They have given me complete freedom to go out and make films with other producers so that my creativity should not be hindered in any way. It is just that they should get good value for those films as well. It’s a very healthy thing in the business of filmmaking,” Bellary said.
But with so much of creative freedom being given to the actors and directors, will the role of producers be limited to being just the moneybags?
“We work very hard with a director to get the final script documented. Once we are confident about the script then the director has all the freedom in the world to go out and shoot it,” Producer, PNC Films, Pritish Nandy said.
Pritish Nandy Communications has recently signed actor-director Rajat Kapoor for a five-film deal worth Rs 20 crore. For a filmmaker who once had to raise funds for his film Raghu Romeo through the Internet, the new flush of money in the industry is good news.
But in the fickle world of Bollywood, if even one film of say Hrithik Roshan fails, it remains to be seen if the contracts will be honoured or just thrown out of the window.
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