For much of 2026, the Hindi film trade has been looking for a turning point. Hanuman Ansh, a low-budget devotional drama, has supplied the number: more than ₹423 crore in worldwide gross as of 5 October. Richa Chadha is cautioning against reading that figure as proof that content-driven cinema has arrived.
The actor, currently presenting the eight-episode city travel series Musafiri on Phull Stop through Pushing Buttons Studios, made the distinction plainly. “It is early to say ki kuch accha ho raha hai,” she said.
A religious title is not a content benchmark
Chadha argued that Hanuman Ansh needs to be treated as its own category. The film is rooted in the life of Neem Karoli Baba, which gives audiences a familiar devotional frame. Religious or mythological subjects, she said, are safe for everyone to see and tend to find an audience. That pattern does not by itself show that viewers are rewarding sharper scripts or riskier stories.
She also drew a line between Hindi releases and Hollywood imports. With Obsession performing in theatres, she said, local films should not be compared against it as if both were responding to the same demand.
The numbers behind the argument
Vishal Chaturvedi’s Hanuman Ansh was made on a budget of roughly ₹2 crore. It crossed ₹300 crore in India and ₹400 crore worldwide within eight weeks, then continued to hold against The Paradise, The Vvaan – Force of the Forest and Drishyam 3, reaching ₹423 crore by 5 October, according to Sacnilk figures cited by Hindustan Times.
Chadha’s test is the rest of the slate:
- Hanuman Ansh carries a devotional hook, not a star-driven or script-first pitch.
- Its growth was gradual and word-of-mouth led, which proves staying power for a faith-based subject.
- Chadha says the industry will know content is winning when writers are paid better and scripts improve.
That last point is her prescription. “I feel better scripts and money for writers could lead us to the phase where content-driven cinema takes the lead,” she said.
What the industry has chosen to do
The immediate next moves are franchise-minded. Producers have announced a sequel. Producer Anupriya Nagar said the next film will not push its budget to ₹20 crore simply because the first film worked, since a larger spend could force unnecessary VFX. SonyLIV has announced a series on Neem Karoli Baba, with cast and release date still to be revealed.
For Bollywood Chronicle readers, the useful distinction is between an outlier and a structural shift. A ₹2 crore devotional film becoming a ₹423 crore grosser is a remarkable multiplier. The next piece of evidence is whether that money changes what gets written, financed and greenlit.
Source: Hindustan Times
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