Having gained a name for being a straight shooter and somebody who doesn't hesitate to voice his opinion, however strong it may be, producer K Rajan has now raised a lot of pertinent questions against corporate production houses and their practices. He has questioned Darbar's producers - Lyca Productions' decision to pay high salaries for the stars. He asks, "Why do you pay Rs. 100 Crores as salary for a single hero when you could make a whole movie for Rs. 2 Crores and make 50 such movies from the salary of a single star? Even if 25 of these 50 movies turn successful, like Aruvi, Joker and Kaaka Muttai did, that is enough for doing good business. Which of these movies were made with A-list stars? They had confidence in the project and the director. No local producer from Tamil Nadu would make movies on such huge budgets. These are being done by corporate companies."

 

Talking about Superstar Rajinikanth's next movie's producers - Sun Pictures, Rajan says that they are very clear about the salaries of stars and would never inflate somebody's salary numbers blindly. Responding to rumours of whether Rajinikanth's salary has been reduced by 50% for his next, Rajan says, "No! That is false news again. According to my reliable sources, Rajni's salary for Thalaivar 168 is Rs. 75 Crores, plus GST. Sun Pictures are producers from within Tamil Nadu and they would always spend within limits."

 

Talking in detail about production costs, the veteran producer says, "When I make a movie, I always manage all the spending in person. When Lyca Productions is making a movie, who would manage things on the ground? Production Managers and other intermediate people can easily fool the director and over 30% of our budget would be lost in such cases. For Lyca, only their employees manage it and they wouldn't do it very carefully and this can overshoot the budget spending. Darbar wasn't worth it for the common people to spend heavily for it. There have been numerous movies which have smuggling and trafficking as part of the storyline. Besides, the story was set in Mumbai and the Tamil people were not able to identify with it."