Filmmaker Varun Grover feels there is a tendency to exploit writers in Bollywood, where many people omit their credit from the promotional material. He says the injustice is not limited to newcomers, but is also faced by veterans such as Gulzar and Javed Akhtar . Also read : Varun Grover says child of same-sex couple won't be product of loveless marriage: 'They will be raised with empathy.
..' Varun spoke about the issue prevailing in the industry in an interview with Jist .
Writers get exploited In the interview, he recalled how his writer friend was exploited by a so-called ‘messiah director’ in Bollywood . However, he refrained from disclosing any names. “A friend of mine recently worked with a very big filmmaker.
This filmmaker doesn’t make very commercial films, but he does middle-of-the-road cinema, has been working for over 30 years, and is seen as a ‘messiah’ by his fans. An entire generation of filmmakers has been inspired by this person. My friend was supposed to write the dialogues, but he was told that he needs to write the dialogues and the screenplay both,” he said.
Here, Varun shared that his friend, who is a popular comedian, was paid ₹ 50,000, but the fee was increased to ₹ 3 lakh after negotiations. Varun stressed it is against the laws set by the Screenwriters’ Association where one cannot pay a writer less than ₹ 12 lakh for the dialogues, and around ₹ 20 lakh for the dialogues and screenplay both. He added, “This was done by a wel.