Dharmendra must be smiling from heaven. Both his sons, 68-year-old Sunny Deol and 52-year-old Bobby Deol, are writing a new chapter in Deology in Bollywood. But today, we’re only talking about ‘Sunny’ days.
Rivalry brewing again with the class of the ’80s
Anil Kapoor, Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dutt are all ’80s stars. Anil’s first lead role in Bollywood is considered to be Woh Saat Din (1983), though he had a small part in Hamare Tumhare earlier and had also done a regional film. Sanjay Dutt debuted with Rocky in 1981, and Sunny Deol with Betaab (1983). Back in the ’80s, these three actors were locked in a battle for supremacy.
With Sunny’s Rs 25 crore minimum tag, both Anil and Sanjay are left behind in the hustings
68-year-old Sunny Deol has taken Bollywood by storm since Gadar 2 (2023).
He is the highest-paid senior actor, a category that also includes his counterparts, Anil Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt.
When G2, the Partition drama, netted Rs 525.45 crore and was declared an All-Time Blockbuster (ATBB), the film consolidated Sunny’s position as a senior star and immediately put him on par with other ATBB superstars like the Khans — Aamir, Salman and Shah Rukh — along with Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal and Ranveer Singh.
Actors usually shy away from confirming their exact remuneration
In a chat with this writer post Gadar 2, Sunny blushed crimson red but shied away from giving an exact figure to cap the exaggerated sums being offered to lure him. At that point, the three films he agreed to do were Border 2, Jatt and Batwara: 1947. For these three, he reportedly got paid a price north of Rs 25 crore; albeit SD’s new salary was anywhere between Rs 25-35 crore. The producer of one of these films confirmed to us that the money being paid to Sunny depended on how much monetary “burden” a movie could take and how deep the producers’ pockets were.
How Anil and Sanjay’s stock suffered
It so happens that, in round two, Anil got the first-mover advantage. He became the toast of the town with Dil Dhadakne Do (2015) and Total Dhamaal (2019). Of course, the cherry on the cake was Animal (2023), an ATBB. Post this success, AK is said to have asked for a price between Rs 8-15 crore once again and got paid an amount depending on how desperate the producers were to have him. The grapevine says that when he was approached for Welcome to the Jungle, the jhakaas actor reportedly upped the ante to Rs 18 crore. As a result, the Anil-Nana Patekar, or the Majnu-Uday track in the film, was passed on to Arshad Warsi and Suniel Shetty. Also, mixed reports for films like Fighter, Savi, War 2 and Alpha were not kind to Kapoor, box office-wise.
Sanjay’s day in the sun is temporarily under a cloud
Sanjay Dutt was pushed to the top in round two after KGF 2 (2022), for which he got paid around Rs 10-12 crore.
Between 2022 and 2026, Dutt became the most-wanted pan-India senior character actor/villain and got paid handsomely for films like Leo (2023), Jawan (2023) and the Dhurandhar duology (2025-26).
But his stock recently went thanda because of flops like Aakhri Sawaal, The Raja Saab, Baaghi 4 and The Bhootnii. However, people are looking forward to his next run in the reprised Khalnayak Returns and Vaastav.
Sunny, on the other hand, has reportedly hit the Rs 40 crore button!
Sunny Deol followed up the super-success of Gadar 2 with the average Jatt (2025). Then, he brought himself back to numero uno among senior actors with this year’s Republic Day release, Border 2, once again declared a huge hit.
Now, as the world awaits Batwara: 1947, Sunny is being viewed as a superstar with an advantage over even younger successful Bollywood actors.
For his next crime thriller, Joseph, and the smallie Gabru, Sunny is getting anywhere between Rs 25-30 crore, with a share in the IPR too. But the goodness doesn’t end here. For India’s most ambitious mythological film, Ramayana Parts 1 & 2, in which he plays Lord Hanuman, Sunny is reportedly being paid Rs 40 crore. He is meant to have only a short screen presence in Part 1, allegedly making an appearance only towards the end.
But Lord Hanuman will be fully seen and revered in Part 2 of Ramayana, which is scheduled for a Diwali 2027 release.
