Jun 23, 2011 - Sona Nair, Malayalam TV actress, stars in Autograph. Another popular soap queen, Sona Nair, 35, works in two serials. Who has many hit soaps to his credit, says, “Women can make a comfortable income from TV.
After magazine published an article citing that Gal Gadot, the star of Wonder Woman, made a paltry 2,36,000 USD which is 46 times lesser than what Henry Cavill made for Man of Steel, there was much outraging about the significant pay disparity in the movie industry when it comes to male and female stars. Later have pointed out that the claim is not entirely true but have asserted that while the outrage may have been uncalled for in this instance, the wage gap between genders definitely exists. Closer home, actors like Kangana Ranaut, Anushka Sharma, Divya Spandana, Parvathy and Rima have spoken up about the fact that heroines get only a fraction of the money that heroes get paid for the same film. Even if the woman actor shoulders a film entirely by herself, she is still not paid the same rate as a male actor for a hero-centric film. In the south Indian film industries, where conversations on gender and misogyny within the industry are only beginning to happen, the wage gap certainly exists and is only to be expected considering there have been barely a handful of films which are either woman-centric or at least have a substantial role for the heroine. TNM spoke to some reliable sources* from all four industries to get a sense of the wage gap.
What decides a star's salary? The salary of a certain star, irrespective of gender, varies according to his/her popularity with the audience, the relationship they have with the producer and the performance of their last few releases at the box-office. Except a few stars who can be said to have a permanent fan base, the salaries of others may fluctuate if their last few releases have flopped. It also matters which industry they work in.
His parents inadvertently enroll him into Youkai Academy as a last-ditch effort to secure his education. However, there is one golden rule at Youkai Academy—all humans found on school grounds are to be executed immediately! Download subtitle. Tsukune Aono is an average teenager who is unable to get into any high school because of his bad grades. As Tsukune unknowingly enters this new world, he has a run-in with the most attractive girl on campus, Moka Akashiya.
So, although Mohanlal has won the National Award for Best Actor twice and is the highest paid male star in Kerala, his salary of over 2 crores for a Malayalam film is much lower than what a less experienced actor like Rana Daggubatti of the Telugu industry commands - around 5 crores. Crack real life cam and forums. And Rana is not even in the top league in Telugu. Image courtesy: Facebook/Mohanlal Understandably, the difference exists because of the business side of cinema. The Tamil and Telugu industries are much bigger than the Malayalam and Kannada industries in budgets and scale.
Top male stars like Vijay and Ajith in the Tamil industry make almost Rs 30 crore per movie; Pawan Kalyan, Mahesh Babu and Junior NTR of Telugu are in the 17-22 crore bracket. Yash tops the Kannada industry with 8 to 10 crores with Puneeth Rajkumar commanding 6 to 8 crores and Darshan and Sudeep earning about 4 to 6 crores per film. Malayalam has Mohanlal at the top with over 2 crores followed by Mammootty at 1.5 crore and Nivin Pauly at over 1 crore. Others like Dulquer and Fahadh are in the 50-70 lakhs bracket and they sign more projects a year as compared to Nivin. Not all of these salaries appear on paper, especially after demonetisation, the sources are quick to add.
Property deals or other such lucrative deals are also done. Profit sharing, although new, is catching up, too. How does gender come in? Mainstream films which are hero-centric are sold on the name of the male actor. So Theri is a Vijay film and not a Samantha film and Pulimurugan is a Mohanlal film and not a Kamalini Mukherjee film. It is the male actor who brings people to the theatres and ensures big openings for the film although a popular heroine adds to the excitement around it. Movie industries have very few female producers, directors, script writers, and technicians.