Behind Deepika Padukone’s 'Spirit' exit is a question Bollywood may not want to answer

• Pranay Reddy Vanga claims Deepika demanded 10% of Spirit profits.
• He says remuneration and working hours were also part of negotiations.
• Deepika has defended her demand for an eight-hour workday.
• Male Bollywood stars have long used profit-sharing deals.
• Social media is debating whether gender shapes how celebrity demands are judged.

Deepika Padukone’s reported demand for a 10% share of the profits from Spirit is being presented as another reason behind her exit from the Prabhas-led film. But there is a larger question that deserves more attention: why does a woman asking for a percentage of a film’s success become a controversy when profit-sharing has long been part of the business model for Bollywood’s biggest male stars?

Pranay Reddy Vanga, brother of director Sandeep Reddy Vanga, has claimed that Deepika’s negotiations involved remuneration, working hours and profit participation. He said the actress wanted 10% of the film’s profits, a proposal the team believed did not make economic sense.

His account is one side of a dispute, and Deepika has not publicly confirmed the 10% figure. But the conversation raises an uncomfortable industry question: is a woman negotiating aggressively for the value she believes she brings to a project judged differently from a man doing exactly the same thing?

“She demanded 10 percent from the film’s profit.”

Pranay said, “She demanded 10 percent from the film’s profit. Soon after, everything went overboard. See, she can ask for anything. If we are willing to give, we can give. But the economics (budget) should also work out for us. We thought that it was not working. This is why we thought of other options. Once we started looking for other options, they started leaking everything.”

He also alleged that confidential discussions about the film were subsequently leaked.

“We discussed the story and character with her. Things discussed internally should not be revealed but she leaked all of them. That is why we are disturbed,” he said.

Those allegations are separate from the financial question. A performer asking for a profit share is not, by itself, an unusual Hollywood-style concept—or even an unusual Bollywood one.

Aamir Khan has publicly explained that he sometimes takes no upfront acting fee and instead receives a percentage of profits after the production has recovered its costs.

Shah Rukh Khan has also reportedly used profit-sharing arrangements. For Pathaan, reports put his deal at roughly 45% of profits in one account, while other industry reports have cited a 60–65 per cent share.

That makes Deepika’s alleged 10 per cent demand look less like an unprecedented Hollywood-style power play and more like a negotiation that can be accepted, rejected or countered.

“I am not the first one who has asked for something like this.”

The gender question becomes even more interesting when the debate moves beyond money.

Deepika has defended her reported demand for an eight-hour workday, saying, “I don’t think what I am asking for is ridiculously unfair and I think only someone who has worked in the system enough will know the conditions that we work in. And I am saying this, if I may say so myself, a top star, so you can only imagine what the working conditions must be like for everyone else, for the crew, for example.”

She added, “I am not the first one who has asked for something like this. In fact, there are a lot of actors, male actors, who have been working on a 8-hour shift for years and it’s never made headlines.”

That distinction matters.

When male superstars negotiate percentages, backend deals and working conditions, those arrangements are frequently discussed as sophisticated business decisions. Industry reporting has repeatedly identified Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan among major stars who use profit-sharing models.

So what happens when Deepika makes a demand?

The language surrounding the controversy often shifts toward “difficult,” “demanding” or “unreasonable.” That does not automatically mean sexism is responsible for every disagreement. Producers have every right to reject terms that do not fit their budgets.

But women in entertainment have historically had to negotiate not only for money, but also for the right to be seen as commercially valuable.

“I am someone who has always fought my battles silently.”

Deepika has largely avoided turning the dispute into a public war.

She said, “I am someone who has always fought my battles silently, and for some strange reason, sometimes they become public—which is not the way I know and not the way I’ve been brought up. To fight my battles silently and in a dignified way is the way I know.”

Meanwhile, social media has turned the latest revelations into another gender debate. Some users have questioned why profit-sharing is treated as normal when demanded by male stars but controversial when associated with a female actor. Others argue that Spirit is a major commercial production and that producers must retain the freedom to reject any financial demand they consider too expensive.

That criticism is fair. Feminism does not mean every demand made by a woman must be accepted.

But it does mean applying the same standard.

If a male superstar can negotiate a percentage of profits because his market value gives him leverage, why should a female superstar be treated as greedy simply for attempting to negotiate her own share?

The answer should not depend on whether the person making the demand is a man or a woman.

Spirit, starring Prabhas and Triptii Dimri, is scheduled for release in March 2027. The film may ultimately become a major box-office success—or it may not. But the controversy surrounding its casting has already exposed a bigger question for Bollywood: when women finally negotiate like the industry’s most powerful men, is the industry ready to treat them like equals?