Source: Indya.Com
Date: December 18, 2007
Hrithik Roshan has returned Rs 30 crore that he had received from Adlabs for a three-film deal with them.
The inside buzz is that Roshan Jr. feels his market value presently is much more than that and having signed a top Hollywood agent in the West, he is looking forward to a bigger avenue. During 2006 Diwali period, Adlabs had signed Hrithik for a three-film contract for which he was paid the entire amount as the signing amount itself. The acting fee (Rs. 10 crore per film) was that time the highest ever received by any Bollywood actor.
An Adlabs official confirmed that the deal was off but refused to go on record.
Industry insiders revealed to us, “Under the deal, the Bollywood super hero had full liberty to choose the script and the director he wanted to direct it. But now with more than a year having passed by, not a single project could take off as Hrithik did not approve of any single script that was offered to him by Adlabs. It was then, it is learnt, that Rakesh Roshan suggested Hrithik to return back the entire amount and break himself free from the agreement he was in with Adlabs."
Sources add, “Before leaving for Singapore for a six week break to recuperate his knee injury, Hrithik made sure all formalities in regards to the contract termination were done."
Meanwhile, a trade source tells us, “The Adlabs deal was signed before Dhoom 2 happened which was Hrithik’s consecutive success after Krrish. The major credit for the Dhoom sequel went to Hrithik alone and his market standing rocketed sky high. With other stars like Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan being offered much lucrative packages by top production houses, Hrithik must have felt it would be unreasonable getting stuck in a three-film deal for a long term with no script working to his favour. Also, with Brad Pitt's management firm, Brillstein-Grey having signed him, his prospects of working with big names in the West has increased. So in fact in a way it is also very professional of Hrithik having terminated the deal instead of keeping them hanging after bagging projects abroad.”
Another source reveals, “Interestingly, the Anil Ambani group owned Reliance Entertainment that holds the majority stake in Adlabs presently, has started making its moves to woo the Dhoom 2 star. They have been recommending several scripts but he is yet to give his nod to any of those."
It has also been learnt that the hunky actor has been rejecting scripts left right centre from even top filmmakers such as Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (for Dilli 6), Rajkumar Hirani, Anurag Kashyap, John Mathew Mathan and even Ram Gopal Varma.
Sources close to him tell us, "It is not that he is not interested in working with them but none of the scripts offered by these makers are charging him up to sign on the dotted line."