Kangana Ranaut
Kangana RanautVarinder Chawla

Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut grabbed a lot of attention with her no-filter attitude in her recent interviews. It looks like it affected her recent movie, Simran, which didn't do well at the box office as fans and in fact, Kangana expected.

The recent buzz is Kangana has agreed to a pay cut for her upcoming movie, Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi. Is it because Simran failed to do good business?

The period drama is directed by South director Krish and produced by Kamal Jain and Zee Studios. Bollywood Hungama reported that the movie is half done and according to a source, Kangana's budget has been slashed.

"The reason why Simran was an extremely important film for Kangana and she went all out to promote it was because the producers were fixing the budget according to the opening. Now that the film has not done well, there is talk that landing cost of the film (with P& A) which is Rs.80-crore (approx.) is very expensive and the budget will be reduced as the cost does not seem recoverable," a source told the daily.

"Question also arises if post-Simran, Kangana has the stardom to recover the cost. Historicals are very expensive and people expected Simran to have a Rs.20 crore weekend which didn't happen as it barely scraped across with Rs10 crore."

However, producer Kamal Jain rubbished the rumours and said that they have not reduced the budget at all. He said: "I can't reveal the budget but to put aside the rumours, when we started the film, it was immediately after the failure of Rangoon which was also an expensive period film."

Kangana Ranaut, Rangoon
Kangana Ranaut in RangoonPR Handout

"That was a bigger disaster as compared to Simran and we started shooting for Manikarnika immediately almost a month after the Rangoon disaster. So when we were aware that Kangana had a disaster like Rangoon behind her and we went ahead with Manikarnika, why should we reduce budget now?"

Manikarnika is a period drama based on the life of Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi and her war against the British East India Company, during the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny.

Kangana Ranaut in Rani Laxmibai
Kangana Ranaut in Rani LaxmibaiVarinder Chawla/Twitter

Do you think Kangana will be able to pull off the role? Share your views in the comment section.