As Indian cinema expanded in the ’70s and ’80s, actors’ fees rose significantly. At the height of his fame in the ’80s, Amitabh Bachchan increased his per-film salary from ₹10 lakh to over ₹50 lakh, establishing a new benchmark and making him the highest-paid actor in India. However, his dominance was challenged in the ’90s by an unexpected contender from the South, who managed to dethrone the superstar.
In 1992, Telugu megastar Chiranjeevi appeared on the cover of ‘The Week‘ magazine with the bold headline: “Bigger than Bachchan.” At that time, suggesting any actor surpassed Amitabh Bachchan was almost sacrilegious, but Chiranjeevi had just shattered the ₹1-crore mark by charging ₹1.25 crore for ‘Aapadbandhavudu’. With Bachchan on a break after ‘Khuda Gawah’, Chiranjeevi became the highest-paid Indian actor. Other leading stars like Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, and Sunny Deol were earning between ₹60-80 lakh per film.
The ₹1-crore club expanded in the mid-’90s when Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth also began charging that amount. Upon his return to acting in 1996, Amitabh Bachchan became the first Bollywood actor to command ₹1 crore per film, while Sridevi became the first female actor to reach that figure the same year. By the late ’90s, the dynamics of Indian cinema were shifting, with Hindi films leading in both scale and profitability, prompting top Bollywood actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan to charge ₹2-3 crore per film by the millennium’s end.
Despite this evolution, Chiranjeevi maintained his position as the top star in the Telugu film industry during the ’90s, achieving an impressive 14 consecutive hits in a single year. In the 2000s, he continued his success with blockbusters like ‘Indra’, earning the title of “Megastar.” After a political hiatus starting in 2008, he made a successful comeback in 2017 with hits such as ‘Khaidi No 150’ and ‘Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy’. Even at 69, Chiranjeevi remains a leading figure in Telugu cinema, reportedly commanding up to ₹40 crore per film today.
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