Gone are those days when the news of a leading actor’s two-digit remuneration would make the whole industry go berserk. Times have changed and so have the salary packages! Kollywood stalwarts like Thalapathy Vijay, Rajnikanth, and Ajith Kumar are charging in the three-digit category in the present decade, and even increasing their ask with every new release!
Take Thalapathy Vijay for example. Starting as a child actor, he went on to do a few films in his beginning years under his father SA Chandrasekhar. He would earn only up to 5,000 in those times apparently. But slowly he was able to get a place in the audience’s hearts as an action star as well as a complete entertainer who has achieved a godly status among his huge fan following.
Vijay received 100 to 150 crores each for his movies last year, but now he has taken it up a notch as his films have been doing considerably well at the South Indian box office as a whole. According to rumors, he is charging a whopping 200 crores for his next, The Greatest Of All Time (The GOAT), directed by Naresh Kuppili.
Rajnikanth, the king of Tamil cinema, has had a comeback like no other in recent times, too. For Kabali, he earned a handsome 80 crore for the movie and since then has not accepted anything less than 100 crore for any movie. He was paid 110 crores (excluding profit share) for his recent outing, Jailer. And now, he is again the talk of the town as he is rumored to get around 150 crores for his upcoming film Vettaiyan, making him one of the highest-paid actors in the industry, even at his age.
No story revolving around Kollywood superstars can go without the mention of superstar Ajith Kumar or Thala Ajith as he is known for his loyal fanbase. At the beginning of his career, he had played a minor supporting role in director Suresh Menon’s 1994 film Paasamalargal. He was reportedly paid only 2500 for the small role. But from there he rose to become a superstar who would get paid around 20 crores for each film in the 2000s, making him appear in the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list at least three times.
Currently, this number is five times that – he earns nothing less than 105 crores per movie; he was paid exactly this for his recent outing Valimai which did decently at the box office. And now, if the grapevine is to be believed, he has bagged a handsome amount of 110 crores for his upcoming venture, Vidaa Muyarchi, set to release sometime this year.
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Also read: Thalapathy 69: Thalapathy Vijay’s Demand Of 250 Crores Salary Leads To Trouble?