Hanuman Ansh Outruns Toxic at the Box Office

Massive, mega-budget spectacles usually hog the Sunday headlines. Yet, one of the most surprising stories in Indian cinema today belongs to a tiny devotional film, Hanuman Ansh. Directed by Vishal Chaturvedi, a former MBBS doctor who left medicine to pursue filmmaking, the film, based on Neem Karoli Baba’s spiritual journey, is proving to be an unlikely box-office success. The makers shot the whole project on a ridiculously tight budget of just Rs 2 crore. When it first hit screens on August 7, opening day collections brought in a dismal Rs 10 lakh.

The film initially appeared unlikely to recover its costs. But then word-of-mouth kicked in, and audiences began turning up in growing numbers, completely changing its fortunes Fast forward to today, and the film has crossed Rs 70 crore in reported India net collections, with gross earnings approaching Rs 90 crore.  It even recently outperformed Yash’s Toxic in daily collections. At the centre of this success is Shobhinaw Satyaa’s portrayal of Neem Karoli Baba, resonating strongly with audiences. The remarkable run reportedly represents a return of several thousand per cent on its production budget. While not an audited profit, the numbers still make Hanuman Ansh one of the year’s most striking underdog success stories.