Rakyesh Mehra's Rang De Basanti is slated to be a Rs 24 crore film. With only Aamir Khan as the selling force, the industry wonders whether there will be enough takers for a film that deals with campus politics.

The rate at which Mehra is demanding raw stock, it looks like the film is going to overshoot the stipulated budget. The film stars Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor and Soha Ali Khan.

According to trade pundits, even if the film's theatrical rights are sold at Rs 9 crore, overseas at about Rs 3 crore and audio and DVD rights at Rs 2.5 crore, satellite rights at Rs 2 to Rs 3 crore, the best it can recover is about Rs 15 crore. Besides, this film's fate will be affected by the box office success of The Rising.

When Rang De... was launched, most production houses were wary of investing in the film on account of the massive budget. UTV finally agreed when the budget was scaled down to Rs 24 crore. Mehra has only one film to his credit, Aks, that was a flop at the box office.

The acclaimed ad filmmaker isn't considered a saleable feature filmmaker by the industry.

UTV hasn't succeeded in controlling budgets of most of its previous projects. Swades is a case in point. But UTV's Ronnie Screwvala isn't in the mood to agree. "I don't know where you got this information from. Swades didn't overshoot its budget. Rang De... is under production with almost half the shoot complete."