Salman Khan is bigger star than Shah Rukh Khan, says Ram Gopal Varma

Salman Khan is a bigger star than Shah Rukh Khan, according to Ram Gopal Varma. The film-maker referred to Salman's last super-hit movies and said that the "Sultan" actor is currently a bigger star than SRK.

"What to do you mean by emerging? He already is a bigger star than SRK right now. Eventually, stardom is about collections. The star whose last three films collected the biggest will obviously be the biggest superstar," RGV told the Indian Express when asked if Salman is emerging to be a bigger star than Shah Rukh.

Salman's last three movies "Kick," "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" and "Prem Ratan Dhan Payo" turned out to be three of the biggest box office hits of the actor. While Shah Rukh's "Dilwale" and "Fan" failed to stand up to the expectations.

Earlier, the "Veerappan" director had earlier raised eyebrows when he had tweeted that Shah Rukh would lose his stardom like Kamal Haasan had lost it to Rajinikanth.

"SRK must learn from mistakes of kamal and not listen to near n dear ones who are stopping him from becoming a Mega Rajnikant [sic]," Ram Gopal had tweeted. His second tweet read, "Megastar SRK becoming ordinary fan,dwarf etc is as big a same blunder as what Kamal Hasan did to lose his stardom to Rajnikant(Salman Khan) [sic]."

Shah Rukh, who was last seen playing the role of a fan of a superstar in the movie "Fan," will next be seen portraying the character of a dwarf in Aanand L Rai's next film.

Explaining his comparison in his controversial tweets, RGV told the daily: "Films work on two levels. I don't subscribe to the fact that it is the story that makes the film work. It is the emotion. Emotion can be created by a star. Just the sight of a SRK or Rajinikanth can give you a high. And all the film needs to do is not to bore you. It doesn't need to tell you a story also. I think especially for superstars it is very dangerous to take up a story or different kind of a concept unless he is consciously making the decision.

"That is where I drew the comparison to Leonardo Di Caprio. Caprio is a superstar but the fact that he wants to push himself into very different kind of cinema is a conscious decision that he has taken. That's up to him what he wants to do. But here somebody wants to become a superstar. He wants every film to collect Rs 300 or Rs 400 crores. Then you can't afford to be like that."