Gadar 2 director Anil Sharma on film's budget: 'Entire unit took minimum wages to cut costs'

Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel starrer ‘Gadar 2’, which was released on 11 August, became the fastest Hindi film to enter the Rs 500 crore club. The period action drama has been a hit since its release on August 14. Director Anil Sharma has revealed how the movie’s cast and crew charged negligible fees to cut costs on the budget. In an interview with Instant Bollywood, the 65-year-old director gave details on working with a limited budget of Rs 60 crore on the action-drama-based film. Anil Sharma revealed that Zee Studios had initially agreed to spend Rs 40 crore on Gadar 2, and raised the amount later. However, it still fell short of the Rs 100 crore, which Sharma expected.

_Gadar 2_ has earned an unprecedented Rs 506 crore in India and is trying to break the record for the highest-earning Hindi film, set by Shah Rukh Khan starrer Pathaan at Rs 543 crore. Pathaan released earlier this year.

The making of Gadar 2

During the conversation, the Gadar director opened up on Gadar 2 and how the actors involved in the project were a brand in themselves. However, since “the industry wasn’t doing so well at the time,” the budget of the project was slashed, since “that’s how things work.”

The ‘Apne’ director further added that although the studios couldn’t give him what he wanted, Rs 60 crore was fine. “It wasn’t enough, but it was a lot, considering the situation. We, the entire unit, took minimum wages to cut costs. Wages naa ke barabar liye sab logon ne (we took next to nothing in wages). We took enough to survive and provide for our families, that’s it," he explained.

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After ‘Gadar 2’ crossed the 500 crore mark, Zee Studios expressed gratitude on their Instagram account:

Recently, Anil Sharma also grabbed headlines for indirectly attacking ‘ _Adipurush_ ’, which was made on a whopping budget of Rs 600 crore. The 2023 film, directed by Om Raut, is based on the Hindu epic Ramayana. Sharma said, “These days, heroes and directors charge so much, budgets balloon up to Rs 600 crore, and sometimes heroes charge Rs 150 crore and Rs 200 crore.”

Gadar 2

Gadar 2’s cast features the original team of ‘Gadar – Ek Prem Katha’- Sunny Deol, Ameesha Patel and Utkarsh Sharma. While the earlier blockbuster was an inter-faith romance set against 1947 Indo-Pak Partition, the sequel is set during the 1971 India-Pakistan war.

Filmmaker Anil Sharma is known for films like Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, Apne, Apne 2 and Veer among others.