Kangana Ranaut says Thalaivi can't release digitally, speaks on paycuts post Covid-19

The Coronavirus pandemic has left questions on many minds about how films will release, what will the market be like and will everything change drastically for the foreseeable future. Limping back to normalcy in the film industry isn't quite what one would have thought it to be.

Kangana Ranaut sat down for a chat with a media house opening up about the future of the film industry. Not just that, she even spoke about her own positioning in that future, as an actress, and a filmmaker. With a release looming in the latter part of 2020, there's still much uncertainty.

Kangana Ranaut on the COVID-19 impact on the film industry

The pandemic has brought all the industries to the mercy of the virus. Bollywood, in turn, has been badly hit by the pandemic with many films looking at uncertain release dates, and alternative releases via the digital route. 

The ones hardest hit ar the big-budget films which were made for the theatres. However, with the reopening of theatres looking like long-winded process, especially with the rising rates of public hesitance to go to the cinema halls, recovery will be slow. However, some filmmakers are still holding on to the hope of the same magic the cinemas once possessed.

Kangana Ranaut who has only recently turned filmmaker with her new studio, opened up to Pinkvilla about prospects once the industry begins getting back on its feet. Leaving nothing to assumption she spoke about how actors are charged and how Thalaivi will have to adapt to the situation which was supposed to release on June 26th this year.

She spoke about Thalaivi's digital release, "It depends. For example, a film like Thalaivi just can't release on digital because it is such a massive scale film, neither a movie like Manikarnika is a digital space film, but yes films like Panga, Judgemental Hai Kya also cater to that audience." Moreover, the film's digital rights were sold to Amazon and Netflix at 55 crores she said. She revealed that films usually recover some amount of money before the release including her own film Manikarnika. 

For her own rates, she said she looks at the road to recovery and the financial blueprint of the film when she charges. For Thalaivi the actress charged Rs 25 crores, for two films since the film is shot in both Tamil and Hindi. She said that magazines don't understand the business writing about how much actors charge and she explained that nobody charges what they "want" to charge, it's dependent on multiple factors, "When you say I became the highest-paid actress, it's not something I decided. That's how it came about. And now I will go with that calculation again and I will sit on the recovery sheet with producers and see that nobody goes through the loss."

She said that everybody would be ok with a pay reduction since they don't have an option since it's dependent on the market situation. She said now it'll be about the timing of the release, and filmmakers will wait for the right time as much as they can.