India's highest paid actor charges Rs 10 crore per minute; beat Shah Rukh, Salman, Prabhas, Rajinikanth, Allu Arjun

Just how much is an actor worth. How much is it ok to pay an actor for the stardom and fame he brings to a project, apart from his acting skills? That is a question that has puzzled film producers and marketing professionals for years. But even as that is discussed, salaries of top stars are skyrocketing each year. Most top stars are charging in excess of Rs 100 crore per film in films where they are leads. But if reports are to be believed, this one actor has charged this amount for a mere cameo, becoming India’s highest-paid actor.

India’s highest paid actor

The question of who is India’s highest paid actor can be answered in a number of ways. It can be Shah Rukh Khan, who earned over Rs 500 crore from his three films last year, the most an actor has earned in a year. It could be Rajinikanth who earned a reported Rs 250 crore from the success of Jailer, the most from one film. But it could also be Kamal Haasan, who has, as per a Rediff report, charged Rs 100 crore for a 10-minute cameo in Kalki 2898 AD. The actor plays the antagonist in the recently-released Prabhas-starrer and his character is barely teased in the film, setting him up as the villain for the sequel. Rediff quoted a source as saying, “Both Prabhas and Kamal were paid Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) each. Kamal Haasan has just 10 minutes playing time in the film but he has a lot more in the sequel.”

If this is true, then it means that Haasan has charged Rs 10 crore per minute for his appearance in Kalki, a huge sum. However, the report must be taken with a grain of salt. The salaries mentioned in Rediff’s report differ vastly from what has earlier been reported. In 2023, trade analyst Manobala Vijayabalan had tweeted that Kamal Haasan took home Rs 20 crore for his cameo in Kalki 2898 AD, while Prabhas was the highest-paid actor in the film with upfront fees of Rs 80 crore. It is likely that the Rs 100-crore sum is what Haasan took for both parts of the film.

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