We often hear about movies making huge profits on box office but not many of us know how these profits are distributed between actors, director and producers. In a recent podcast, filmmaker Karan Johar shared that a huge fraction of the earnings goes to the actors and that he often finds it hard to negotiate with them because of their delusions and egos.

Karan stated, “In the superstars’ economics, 60-70% goes to the star. In the non-superstar economics, maybe 20, 30 and then divided by… if the director is big, then the writer, then technicians and then it gets divided equally after that.”

He further shared, “It is harder to negotiate with the actors than with the distributors. Because there we are combating delusions. Delusion is one disease which has no vaccination. I can’t tell people the truth that you opened to this, this, this in the last four films, now why are you asking me for this? You ask me what you opened to. You are opening to Rs 5 crore, I should give you Rs 5 crore."

Talking about what makes it difficult to deal with actors, Karan said, "You don’t want to hurt or upset somebody, because eventually, they are stars, they come with fragile egos, they come with their management which is sometimes the bigger stars. I have a management agency of my own and I keep telling them, ‘Please, you must work for the producer and must not work for the actor.’ It’s not an unpragmatic producer, it’s someone who is giving you data and analysis, at least listen to him.”