Yet again, the Hindi film industry is at a crossroads. Theatrical revenues have returned to — and are now surpassing — pre-pandemic levels. Tentpoles command the big streaming deals. Production costs have soared, capital is needed, and a consolidation wave is underway, with conglomerates and investment firms eyeing one prize above all: intellectual property (IP) ownership. Stars, filmmakers, producers and studio executives are navigating this new reality, as uncertain as it is lucrative.
So, who do they call?
In a word: Lawyers. No other corner of the Bollywood ecosystem has grown in scale and complexity in the last five years as its legal machinery. Lawyers structure deals, draft agreements, mediate disputes and protect rights and IP. The industry remains a soft target, which compounds expenditure. Big IP, bigger disputes, and billion-rupee deals have quietly turned lawyers into Bollywood’s most indispensable power players. Big money is being spent — and the numbers show it.
Filings from four prominent production companies — Dharma Productions, Yash Raj Films, Excel Entertainment and Maddock Films — reveal a nearly threefold jump in annual legal spends. These companies collectively spent ₹66.5 crore in legal professional charges in FY 2024-25, up from ₹23.7 crore in FY 2020-21.
All major platforms and production houses operating today have in-house legal teams. Beyond that, full-service law firms — such as Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, ANM Global, Naik and Naik, DSK Legal and others — and boutique firms offer a host of legal and strategic services. In the event of litigation, the representation gets more complex — and expensive.
The Bill Rises
The lawyers The Hollywood Reporter India spoke to confirmed that legal foresight is now embedded from the start of a production cycle. The days of handshake deals and poor documentation are almost gone.
“In today’s world, content reviews and clearances, sanctity of chain of title documents and robust and timely documentation have become very important. Parties are usually represented and contracts are negotiated before signing,” says Aarushi Jain, Partner (Head - media, entertainment and gaming), Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.
Priyanka Khimani, founder of Khimani & Associates, and one of the leading entertainment lawyers in the business, credits the arrival of global streamers with the surge in structure and sophistication. “In the early days of OTT, thanks to Netflix and Amazon, legal costs started to get factored into the production budget. A trend started of doing what we call production packs — if a banner has a pipeline of five or six shows, they can apply for a production pack with a firm.” In the U.S., she notes, one to two per cent of a show’s episodic budget is typically reserved for legal fees. “We are still nowhere close to achieving that kind of parity with the West, but it’s a start.”
Meghna Sharma, Head of Business and Legal Affairs at Matter Entertainment, estimates that for film productions, two to three per cent of the budget is earmarked for legal, capped at about five per cent. “Anything based on real events is the most cost-intensive,” she says. These budgets build in contingencies — FIRs, defamation suits, censor setbacks — but if a film actually goes to court, legal costs become practically open-ended.
“Litigation in India is an extremely expensive exercise,” says Khimani. “A top-of-the-line counsel can sometimes charge ₹20 to ₹25 lakhs for a single appearance. Cases drag on for years. Large companies are willing to cover that kind of cost more than individual talent.”
Then there’s stamp duty. Any agreement that needs to hold up in court must be officially stamped, and for A-list talent deals in Mumbai, that alone can run into several lakhs of rupees per contract. Historically, this fell on the producer by default. The industry has since standardised it as a line item in the legal budget.
The Walkout Clause
Recent controversies — most visibly, the Ranveer Singh-Excel Entertainment dispute — have renewed focus on a key area of entertainment law: talent service agreements and what really happens when a star walks out of a project?
The short answer is: going to court is harder than it sounds. Even when a contract specifies an exact penalty for a breach, Indian law doesn’t automatically enforce it. Courts decide what’s “reasonable compensation” based on proven losses — not what was written in the agreement.
Rajesh Kumar, Head of Legal at Bhansali Productions concurs that proving damages in Indian courts can be “quite challenging.” But, he adds, “Having such a clause does act as a deterrent and encourages parties to comply with their obligations.”
The industry, lawyers agree, still relies heavily on relationships. Disputes are traditionally resolved through informal channels and quasi-legal mediators like the Producers Guild of India. Legal notices are pressure tactics, not genuine preludes to courtroom battles. Litigation remains rare. But the infrastructure for it, at least, is now firmly in place.
Kumar should know. He has steered Bhansali Productions through high-intensity controversies around Goliyon ki Raasleela: Ram-Leela, Bajirao Mastani, Padmaavat and Gangubai Kathiawadi.
Padmaavat, he says, was a turning point — the film faced an unprecedented volume of cases in the run-up to release, with the Supreme Court ultimately stepping in to clear it for nationwide screening. “Almost every day brought a new case or challenge. In comparison, Gangubai Kathiawadi had fewer cases, but the experience was still intense,” Kumar says. “There were days when we had multiple matters listed before different benches of the court on the same day, including proceedings before the Supreme Court just a day before the film’s release.”
Script Doctors
A decade ago, the idea of lawyers clearing screenplays would have been laughed out of a Bollywood office. Today, it’s non-negotiable. Law firms have specialised practice groups that review scripts before a single frame is shot — reading every joke, jibe and historical claim. If a project is based on real events, permissions and clearances must be sought from the corresponding personalities, institutions and estates.
“Script-level vetting for defamation, religious and cultural sensitivity, depiction of institutions and national symbols is now standard practice,” says Sharma, citing controversies around Udta Punjab, Padmaavat, Sacred Games and Tandav as watershed moments.
Ankita Verma, a former senior associate at Bar and Brief Attorneys who advised on the 2024 sports drama Chandu Champion, recalls receiving a detailed questionnaire on potential issues the film could face. Set in the 1960s and ’70s, the biopic of Paralympics gold medallist Murlikant Petkar had several historical, military and cultural references that required careful vetting. “Back in the day, there was a famous bikini shot of Sharmila Tagore in a film magazine (Filmfare). We were asked what the repercussions could be if it were shown in the film.”
Even the highest level of scrutiny can’t anticipate everything. In 2020, the Indian Air Force objected to actor Anil Kapoor inaccurately donning an Air Commodore uniform while mouthing “unparliamentary” language in the teaser of the Netflix satire, AK VS AK. Khimani, whose company had advised on the project, says they had done thorough clearances— but hadn’t seen this coming.
Writers Last
However screenwriters still face battles that A-list talent would never face. As Khimani points out, many Bollywood agreements ask writers to waive their right to seek injunctive relief — meaning they cannot legally stop a film from releasing, even if they haven’t been paid. Their only recourse is a money claim, which could take years to resolve. The legal machinery that protects stars, studios and IP moves fast and spends freely. For the writers who create that IP in the first place, fine print remains a daily hazard.
The Suits-ification of Bollywood, it turns out, has not been an equal process.