Salman Khan confirms film with Atlee delayed, cites high budget

Atlee and Salman are set to collaborate on a large-scale action film that may also feature Kamal Haasan or Rajinikanth

Bollywood actor Salman Khan, about to turn 60 this year, met the Mumbai press ahead of the release of his latest action potboiler, Sikandar. During the interaction, Salman dropped multiple updates about his upcoming projects, including a big action film with Tamil director Atlee. It was speculated that Tamil megastar Kamal Haasan will star in the film alongside Salman.

Asked about his film with Atlee, Salman said: “That’s delayed. The budget is an issue for that film. He (Atlee) has written a very big, large-budgeted film.”

“I don’t know if Rajinikanth or Kamal Haasan will be in the film,” Salman added.

On Bollywood and Southern superstars collaborating more often, Salman said that the budget of such films become unfeasible. “The thing is, money becomes a factor. They also charge and we also charge. It is a very big responsibility to make such a film and you need to have a script that suits it. For example, now there are doing ‘Ramayana. In a film like that, they can cast everyone from across the board.”

Salman condeded that, compared to regional stars, his movies do not do as well in the South, evident in lower footfalls in theatres.

“I’ve worked with South technicians, directors, actors and actresses many times,” Salman said. “But when my film is released there, it will not get the numbers because their fan following is very strong. I’ll walk on the street, and they will shout, ‘Bhai, Bhai, Bhai’, but they will not go to the theatres. How We’ve accepted them here, and their films, that’s not happened there. We go and see films of Rajinikanth garu or Chiranjeevi garu or Suriya or Ram Charan. But their fans do not go and see our films,” Salman expressed.

He reasoned that the budget of pan-Indian films go “very high”, making recovery difficult given the number of theatres in India. “If we had 20,000 to 30,000 theatres, we would have killed Hollywood,” Salman said.