Salman Khan, who two weeks ago, signed Shree Asthavinayak Cine Vision’s film for Rs 24 crore (Rs 12.5 crore fees plus shares in profits, various rights and finally negative rights after a certain period) has now beaten his own record and inked a Rs 33.5 crore deal for a single Zee film, making him Hindi cinema’s highest-paid actor.

Reportedly, Zee had offered him a neat Rs 100 crore for three films, but unlike other stars who grab the moolah, Salman stated that he would first like to do one film, as no one knew what his market would be by the time it releases. Earlier this year, Hrithik Roshan had signed a Rs 35-crore three-film deal with Adlabs.

Just last week, Kareena Kapoor zoomed past Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra to become the highest-paid actress – at almost a tenth of that figure with Rs 3.5 crore. Both Rai and Chopra are in the 2-crore-plus bracket now.

If the plus point is that a lot of money is coming into cinema, the flipside is that star-prices are escalating. With the top-bracket stars packed into multi-film deals and single assignments with pet filmmakers, the second and third rung stars are cashing in and demanding high fees when they cannot even guarantee a film’s opening draw.

And it is another matter that in the fees being charged by the Khans, Akshay Kumar and Hrithik Roshan, multiple films can be made!