Two months after an almost invisible opening, Hanuman Ansh has crossed ₹400 crore in gross collections—made on a budget of ₹1.7 crore and still running in cinemas. The run has turned a small film about Neem Karoli Baba into the clearest evidence yet that Hindi cinema’s bhakti wave is a box-office force, not a niche.
From 27 screens to a sleeper blockbuster
The film made just ₹90 lakh in its first week. By week two, only 27 halls were showing it. Writer-director Vishal Chaturvedi and lead actor Shobhinaw Satyaa took a road trip through Gujarat, Rajasthan and Delhi to meet the audiences at the last shows and ask them to spread the word. By week three, collections rose to ₹10 crore; two months later, the film has crossed ₹400 crore gross.
That arithmetic is now reshaping the pipeline. Ramayana, produced by Prime Focus and Monster Mind Creations at a reported ₹4,000 crore, is being positioned as this Diwali’s biggest draw. Its cast includes Ranbir Kapoor as Ram, Sai Pallavi as Sita, and Sunny Deol as Hanuman. The sequel is due next year, alongside more faith-based titles: two Hanuman films—one made entirely with artificial intelligence—a film on Kali, and an animated feature on Parashuram.
What the success is built on
- Proof at small scale: Mahavatar Narsimha netted nearly ₹250 crore theatrically in 2025 on a ₹15 crore budget.
- Regional precedent: Laalo – Krishna Sada Sahayte became the highest-grossing Gujarati film in January with over ₹100 crore.
- Franchise builders: Hombale Films has announced a Dashavatar franchise, with further Vishnu-avatar films planned at two-year intervals.
This is not a new register for Hindi cinema. Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra launched Indian cinema in 1913 through a devotional story. Jai Santoshi Maa charted in the same 1975 market as Sholay. In the 1980s, the mythological audience moved to television, where Ramayan and Mahabharat drew near-impossible viewership. What has changed is the commercial machinery now behind the genre.
Faith is a fragile formula
The rush has a warning attached. Ormax co-founder Shailesh Kapoor points out that Hindi cinema “has an unenviable ability to identify an emerging opportunity and then eliminate it with oversupply.” He notes that a devotional film need not be a giant spectacle, and that this genre’s success is the most unpredictable because a belief-driven audience can detect cynicism quickly.
Chaturvedi puts the test more simply: “Unless you are a believer, the film will not work.” For producers, the takeaway is not that every deity film will cross ₹400 crore; it is that sincerity, not scale, has been the real multiplier in the year’s most telling hit.
Source: India Today
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