Acharya choreographed the songs, and Suresh Urs edited the film. Soundtrack Uttam Singh composed the soundtrack for The Hero: Love Story of a Spy with lyrics written by Anand Bakshi and Javed Akhtar. Initially, Bakshi was the sole lyricist on the soundtrack, but during production he fell ill. He wrote the lyrics for a few songs after his recovery, but after his death, Akhtar was brought in to write the lyrics for the rest of the songs. The film contains eight original tracks with vocals provided by Vital Signs, Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik, Jaspinder Narula, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sardool Sikander and Hariharan. Times Music released the soundtrack on 20 February 2003. Bollywood Hungama said the soundtrack did not have "anything great or extraordinary to offer" and that the music is below expectations considering the budget and scale of the film. Planet Bollywood rated the album 6 out of 10, calling it "simply passable, nothing spectacular" and saying the music is not what was expected from such a big film. The reviewer said "Dil Main Hai Pyar" is the best song on the album, noting "its enjoyable characteristics" and saying it had "the potential to become very popular". Budget & Trade Analysis After the record-breaking success of Deol's and Sharma's previous collaboration Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, which had become the highest-grossing Indian film of all time at that point, their next collaboration was highly anticipated and a lot was expected from it. According to Taran Adarsh, there were "gargantuan" expectations for the new film". The Hero: Love Story of a Spy was much talked about for its budget and scale. Adarsh said the producers had spared no expense in making it a film of "epic proportions" and "grand production values", writing, "The money spent is visible in every frame, the grand look of the film just cannot be overlooked." The film was also talked about for including stunts that were new to Bollywood cinema. Industry experts and trade analysts declared The Hero: Love Story of a Spy the most expensive Indian film ever made at that point, with some estimating its budget between 500 to 600 million. According to Box Office India, the film had a budget of 350 million, including production and marketing costs. Sharma refused to confirm the exact budget but agreed it was an expensive film, telling Subhash K. Jha: "The producers have gone on record about the budget.