Film artistes have very rarely ploughed their earnings back into filmdom. Most of them have chosen to invest in safe business like marriage halls or buying up real estate. The need to pump a part of the money back into films to help coworkers has never been the motive for film stars when they plan an investment. Except for a Kamalhassan - Rajnikant - Prasanth and Vijaykant who are into producing movies most of the other heroes have chosen to invest in real estate.

Vijay has two marriage halls in Vadapalni; Vijaykant has one in Koyambedu and an engineering college Rajnikant’s marriage hall is in Rangarajapuram and also a hotel Arunchala in Arcot Road. Prasanth’s hotel project is on at the Usman Road where he once lived. Among the heroines it was Ambika- Radha who built a film studio in the outskirts of Chennai. The late matinee idol MGR owned Sathya studios in Adayar while Sivaji Ganesan owned Shanthi theatre in Mount Road. Comedian Nagesh too owned a theatre in T Nagar. Bhanumathi once owned Bharani studios.

Most of the heroines in Tamil filmdom were non-Tamilians. Most of their tenure as heroine too was short lived and very few had moorings in Chennai. Gauthami, Kushboo (who is now a film producer), Sukanya, Bhanupriya hailed from middle class background. They were also saddled with the responsibility of making their kith and kin settle down in life. The money earned from films was ploughed to make a comfortable life for themselves and their immediate family. This left them without any resources to start up any business ventures. Most of the artistes invested in real estate since it is considered a safe bet and also one of the avenues to conduct benami transactions to avoid IT. Rambha who could have invested in business lost major part of her money in producing `Three Roses’. Naghma who ruled the roost for quite some time acquired properties in Chennai. Her sister Jothika however prefers to live in a rented apartment in Chennai

Trisha after the success of `Ghilli’ is today the most in demand heroine. She has now Ji with Ajith, Tirupachi opposite Vijay, a film directed by Ramanna with Jeyam Ravi as hero apart from big banner films and top heroes like Mahesh Babu and Prabhas lined up in Telugu.Her current price in Tamil is Rs 40 lakhs and in Telugu she has upped her price to Rs 45 lakhs. The successful artistes start investing their money in construction of marriage halls or start business ventures, which they can fall back on in lean days. Trisha has decided that like the Superstar she would construct a star hotel. Her dad is in consultation with builders and hotel management experts. The location identified is vacant plot opposite to Vadapalani bus stand. Her contention is that Vadapalani- Saligramam suburbs do not have a five star hotel and this could be the future venue for film folk who are mostly residing in these areas. Her father who is in charge of the project has been advised to locate the hotel in Anna Nagar or in Adyar areas of Chennai.

Mostly producers- technicians are the only people to plough back their money into filmdom. Recording theatres, studios, preview theatres have all been owned by producers- distributors- financiers or technicians. Manirathinam and Rajiv Menon have outdoor unit with the latest camera. Priyadarshan owns a Dolby dubbing and recording studio in Chennai. Most of the artistes own farmhouses on the ECR road, which they rent out for shootings. Kamalhassan and Rajnikant both own film Production Company. The former has a setup to produce a string of movies with him in the lead and also with other heroes. He recently produced Nala damayanthi. Sivaji productions were one of the successful Production Company, which produced films with their in house hero in the lead and later with Prabhu. Rajnikant and Kamalhassan were the only two outside heroes who acted in Sivaji films banner. After the debacle of `Rajakumaran’ the 100th film of Prabhu the company withdrew from production. R M Veerapan’s Sathya movies were supposed to be a front company for MGR.

Among the younger lot Prasanth and Vijay’s parents own production houses. Ajith who dabbled in distribution withdrew after he lost a pile. Directors are the new entrants to production. Cheran, Bala, Pravinkanth and Sharan, to name a few have taken cue from their senior like K Balchander, K Bhagyaraj and Bharathiraja who owns production companies. Among the villains it’s only Prakashraj who is producing and distributing movies. Sarath kumar’s first production was a bomb. He later shifted to construction business and export- import both, which left him with debts. He has a stake in a hospital in Kovai.

In contrast to this the Telugu filmdom personalities have put their money back into films by building studios and other infrastructure needed for filmdom. This has given the much-needed fillip to the Andhra filmdom. A leading producer who migrated to Hyderabad remarked "In Chennai you are shown houses and buildings once owned by producers or artistes but today it’s with some business group. Whereas in Hyderabad you will find studios, recording theatres and many such infrastructure needs owned by film folk. This is what makes Telugu filmdom thrive".