Hanuman Ansh director skipped his fee, now shares profits of a Rs 366 crore hit

Hanuman Ansh, the devotional drama inspired by the life of Neem Karoli Baba, has become one of the most unlikely box office stories of 2026. Seven weeks into its run, the film has earned Rs 366.45 crore gross in 47 days. That makes it the third biggest hit of the year, behind only Dhurandhar 2 and Border 2, and it is expected to stay in cinemas for a few more weeks.

Producer Anupriya Nagar has now revealed how small the project really was. Speaking to Siddharth Kannan, she said the film cost a little over Rs 1.5 crore, and she put in Rs 50 lakh of her own money, about a third of the budget. First-time director Vishal Chaturvedi took no fee while making the film. Instead, he and the three producers are equal partners, so the profits will be split four ways.

Anupriya expects her quarter share to come to around Rs 50 crore once the distributor's cut, expenses and taxes are cleared. She stressed that the number is still theoretical. The team has not yet closed any OTT, satellite or music deal, so those rights are still unsold.

She says she wants to give part of the money back to society and start a production house for regional films and web series. She plans to keep budgets small, because she believes the film worked only because it was made cheaply. "If my budget was too big, I don't think it would have turned out this way," she said.

The story behind the film took a long time to reach the screen. Vishal spent 14 years trying to make it and pitched it to several OTT platforms. Co-producers Ragini Sona and Namrata Singh were the ones who backed it, and Anupriya joined during post-production, when the team needed more funds.

The film reportedly opened with only about Rs 10 lakh before word of mouth pushed collections sharply higher in its third and fourth weeks. Another film on Neem Karoli Baba released this year, Shree Baba Neeb Karori Maharaj starring Subodh Bhave, reportedly collected only around Rs 0.64 crore nett.