masala films helped establish many leading actors as superstars in the 1970s and 1980s, such as dharmendra, amitabh bachchan, rajnikanth, chiranjeevi, and ambareesh achieved stardom in their early bollywood career with masala movies. since the 1990s, actors such as salman khan (salim khan's son), shah rukh khan, akshay kumar, ajay devgn, mahesh babu, allu arjun, jr. ntr, joseph vijay, saravanan sivakumar, dhanush, sivakarthikeyan, darshan, puneeth rajkumar, dev, dev, and jeet have all tasted success in this format.