Exclusive: Meenakshi Chaudhary wants daily rent for staying in her own apartment?

It is known that the producers take care of the accommodation, food and other expenses of the artists when they have to travel from one place to the other for the shoot. But nowadays, this provision is being taken advantage of by the artists.

"The producers already pay for the accommodation of the artists. But nowadays, the artists and their managers are coming up with different ways of looting the producers. They ask only for five-star hotels with suite rooms. Even when the rates are higher than usual, these actors do not cooperate at least once," said a senior production manager who has been working with a top-most production house in TFI.

One such artist is Meenakshi Chaudhary. 2024 has seen a lot of Meenakshi films where we would only remember the star actors performances and not what these actresses have contributed to the film. Meenakshi has seen just one hit this year and it is Lucky Bhaskar. All the other films are considered debacles at the box office.

"She recently bought a flat in Hyderabad. Which means she has just added one more asset to her properties. While it should be easily understood that she will be staying in her new home when in Hyderabad, the scenario is complicated. Her manager Amar Putta has started asking the production houses of her upcoming films to pay 18k per day ( based on the number of shoot days in Hyderabad) as she will be staying in her own flat and not in the hotel. They do not want to work in the favour of the producer. Imagine how much this is going to cost the producers," said a source close to the production.

The source further said that actresses keep increasing the payment of the staff and the entourage with each film and the rate cards are so high. In recent times the Tamil film industry has taken a strong stand against the staff and entourage of the heroines, and they do not entertain any nonsense, be it the heroines’ tantrums or the fans bashing the films; the Telugu producers have failed at it.

While they are struggling to recover from these multiple losses from 2024, the new-age heroines are making claims for their not-so-memorable performances, who take a hefty paycheck home with a number of clauses and conditions that favor them.

The Telugu film industry has seen a lot of hits and misses this year and many controversies too, but one thing that has been a constant struggle for the TFI producers is that they have been struggling to recover from the losses of their films being a disaster at the box office