People's Choice

One Blockbuster, One Miracle, One Flop: What Toxic, Hanuman Anshakar and Mirzapur Reveal About India’s Box Office Logic

Published

7 hours ago

September 10, 2026

Johal

One Blockbuster, One Miracle, One Flop: What Toxic, Hanuman Anshakar and Mirzapur Reveal About India’s Box Office Logic

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Balle Balle Radio™ Entertainment Desk

A gritty streaming-style thriller with no mega-star, a two-crore devotional film that quietly crossed fifty, and a big-budget star vehicle that emptied out on day one — three very different box office stories are exposing what actually moves Indian audiences right now.

Three films. Three completely different outcomes. And together they say more about what Indian audiences actually want than any trade pandit press release ever could.

Start with the one nobody expected to work. Mirzapur — the film — had no mega-star anchoring it. Divyendu Sharma, Ali Fazal and the rest of the ensemble are recognisable faces from the streaming world, not opening-weekend draws in the traditional Bollywood sense. The film runs close to three hours, carries an adult certificate, doesn’t shy away from language or violence, and still pulled audiences into theatres who whistled at gunfights and stayed seated through gaali-laced dialogue. Reports circulating around the film’s numbers vary — some pegging the budget at seventy to eighty crore, others suggesting a leaner figure — but the collection figures, believed to be well past the hundred-crore mark, tell a clear story regardless of which budget number is accurate: this was not supposed to be a slam dunk, and it became one anyway.

The explanation isn’t complicated. Director Gurmmeet Singh appears to have simply extended the show’s template onto the big screen rather than reinventing it, trusting that fans of the series would follow the tone they already loved. That said, not every audience reaction has been uniform — some viewers have pointed to a first half that drags, arguing that twenty extra minutes could have been trimmed without losing anything, with the real momentum arriving once the second-half chaos — the gunfights, the confrontations — kicks in. That’s a fair critical note. A three-hour film with a slow first half is a real risk, and the fact that word of mouth carried it through anyway says something about how much goodwill the source material had already banked with viewers.

A Two-Crore Miracle

If Mirzapur’s success is explainable through fandom and format, Hanuman Anshakar is stranger. A film reportedly made on a budget of around two to three crore has, by some accounts, crossed fifty crore — and did so without a single recognisable star name attached, without a conventional marketing blitz, and without the typical opening-weekend spike. Instead, the film reportedly built its audience gradually, aided by devotional word of mouth, with the film’s own team said to have handed out pamphlets outside temples and gurdwaras during langar gatherings, appealing directly to devotees.

That’s a marketing story worth pausing on. This wasn’t a studio machine spending crores on billboards — it was a grassroots campaign built on faith and community trust, and it appears to have worked precisely because it didn’t try to compete with conventional star-driven marketing at all. Shows reportedly increased gradually, week over week, rather than declining after an opening weekend — an unusual trajectory for Indian theatrical releases, where films typically peak on day one and taper off. A film gaining momentum in its third week, rather than losing it, is genuinely rare.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a fluke, but there’s a broader signal here: devotional and faith-based cinema, made honestly rather than cynically, can generate loyalty that no marketing budget buys. It’s reportedly caught the attention of other producers — with word that additional mythological projects, including one centred on Krishna, may be in development. Whether that enthusiasm translates into similarly organic success remains to be seen; audience trust of this kind isn’t easily manufactured on demand.

When The Formula Fails

Then there’s Toxic — reportedly a big-budget, star-driven production that saw significant walkouts on its opening day, described by some as a major disappointment for its backers. Yash, reportedly linked to the film’s production, is said to have publicly acknowledged the loss and stated an intention to focus on future work rather than dwell on it — a reasonably mature response, if accurately reported, to a costly miscalculation.

The comparison being drawn by some commentators — that a KGF-level hit costing under a hundred crore is remembered for over a thousand crore in returns, while an expensive misfire is forgotten within days — is a useful reminder that budget size and audience affection don’t correlate the way studios often assume. Audiences don’t owe loyalty to a production budget. They respond to story, to characters they want to root for, to a "hero arriving to save the day" simplicity that has worked in Hindi cinema for decades, dressed up or stripped down. When a film forgets that in favour of scale, the fall can be sharp and swift, regardless of star wattage attached to it.

The Deol Question

Which brings us to Sunny Deol, whose recent run has been rockier than his admirers might like to admit. Batwara Ake, released under Aamir Khan’s production banner, reportedly struggled at the box office. Jaat, despite some claims of profitability circulating online, has been characterised by several critics as a commercial disappointment rather than a hit, and an OTT release of an older Deol project is said to have underperformed on viewership as well — undercut, in part, by premature "success celebration" narratives that didn’t match actual numbers.

Yet Deol’s professional relationship with director Rajkumar Santoshi — the filmmaker behind Ghayal, Ghatak and Damini, films that helped build Deol’s stardom in the first place — reportedly remains intact, with two further collaborations said to be in planning: a fresh story set in Banaras (not a sequel or prequel to an earlier title), and Sardar Ji 3 or a similarly titled follow-up. Add to that a reported Border 3 commitment, and the picture is of an actor betting on nostalgia and old creative partnerships rather than newer directors, on the belief — whether justified or not — that today’s filmmaking talent doesn’t match what built his career the first time.

That’s a defensible instinct up to a point. Loyalty to collaborators who understand your strengths as a performer isn’t inherently a bad strategy. But betting an entire slate — reportedly as many as eight upcoming films — on a formula from three decades ago, in a market where audience taste has visibly shifted toward leaner, writing-first storytelling, carries real risk. The danger isn’t creative loyalty. It’s repetition mistaken for reliability.

The Marketing Vacuum

Meanwhile, Akshay Kumar’s upcoming Haiwaan is arriving with strikingly little visible promotion — no major press push, no significant public appearances noted by observers, nothing resembling the marketing intensity usually associated with a Kumar release. Whether that’s a deliberate low-key strategy or simply a production still finding its footing is unclear from the outside. What’s notable is the backdrop: the production banner involved has reportedly been linked to recent box office disappointments, including Toxic and other underperforming titles, which may explain the more muted rollout — or may have nothing to do with it at all.

Studio Perspective

What connects all of this isn’t star power, budget size, or genre. It’s whether a film understands what it’s actually offering an audience and commits to that offer honestly. Mirzapur worked because it trusted its own tone rather than sanitising itself for a wider theatrical crowd. Hanuman Anshakar worked because its makers appear to have understood their audience wasn’t looking for spectacle — it was looking for sincerity, and grassroots faith-based outreach met that audience where it actually lived. Toxic, by most accounts, offered scale without a story audiences wanted to follow.

None of this is really about big stars versus small stars, or big budgets versus small ones. It’s about whether a film knows who it’s for. Sunny Deol’s upcoming slate and Haiwaan’s quiet rollout will be worth watching for exactly this reason — not whether the names attached are big enough, but whether the films underneath those names have something audiences are actually asking for.

The box office doesn’t reward ambition. It rewards clarity. That’s the harder lesson underneath all three of these stories.

— Studio CarryOnHarry Editorial Desk

Read more People’s Choice stories on Studio CarryOnHarry. Reporting via Live News Vault.

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Editor's Choice

Ajay Devgn’s Crime Patrol Gamble: Star Power on a TV Budget

Published

22 hours ago

September 9, 2026

Johal

Ajay Devgn’s Crime Patrol Gamble: Star Power on a TV Budget

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Balle Balle Radio™ Entertainment Desk

A Bollywood A-lister fronting a long-running true-crime show has split opinion between those who see smart cross-platform economics and those who see a mismatch nobody asked for. Meanwhile, a crowded slate of remakes, mythologicals and comedy sequels raises a quieter question about where Hindi cinema’s creative energy is actually going.

Ajay Devgn hosting a true-crime television show sounds, on paper, like a minor career footnote. In practice, it has become one of the more revealing small controversies in recent Hindi entertainment news — not because of what Devgn said or did, but because of what his presence on the show exposes about how stardom, television economics and audience expectation now collide.

Crime Patrol, the long-running Sony reality crime series, aired its new season with Devgn as host, replacing the format’s more familiar anchors. The reaction was swift and largely unflattering. Viewers who follow the show closely — people who know its rhythms, its previous hosts, its particular tone — reportedly found Devgn’s presence jarring, describing him online as a poor fit for the format. Whether that reaction represents a broad consensus or a vocal subset of the show’s fanbase is hard to verify from social commentary alone, but the sentiment appears to be more than a fringe complaint.

Two explanations are circulating for why Devgn took the job at all. One is promotional: that his real interest lies in keeping Drishyam 3 in the conversation. The other, more plausible explanation, is simpler — the reported fee. Devgn is said to have been paid in the range of 90 crore for roughly 15 episodes, which works out to about 6 crore per episode. If accurate, that is a substantial sum for television work, and it would make the financial logic behind his involvement fairly straightforward, whatever the promotional side-benefits might be.

This is not Devgn’s first move into episodic television. He appeared in Rudra: The Edge of Darkness in 2022, a six-episode series that was reasonably well received. That prior experiment suggests his interest in the format isn’t new or purely mercenary — but Crime Patrol is a different animal. It’s a long-running procedural built around a specific host identity, not a limited prestige drama. Reports have also circulated that the show’s regular episodes weren’t being shot with Devgn directly involved in the way viewers might assume, though this detail remains unconfirmed chatter rather than established fact.

A Question of Fit, Not Talent

Nobody seriously disputes Devgn’s abilities as an actor. The criticism isn’t about talent — it’s about context. A major film star stepping into a format built for a different kind of on-screen presence can create a genuine tonal mismatch, independent of how good that star is in his own lane. That’s a fair critical observation. Whether it justifies the intensity of the online reaction is a separate question. Trolling tends to amplify disproportionately, and one bad-fit casting decision doesn’t necessarily reflect on Devgn’s judgment or career trajectory — it may simply reflect a producer’s decision that didn’t quite land with the show’s existing audience.

There’s also a reasonable reading that positions this as a short-term, transactional move rather than a long-term pivot: a well-paid guest-hosting stint that generates conversation, whether positive or negative, while a bigger film franchise stays in the news cycle alongside it. If that was the calculation, the backlash may be beside the point — the show got attention, the fee got paid, and Devgn moves on to whatever comes next, likely with a returning regular host restoring the format to its usual rhythm.

Same Well, Different Buckets

Zoom out from Devgn’s TV cameo and a larger pattern comes into view. Hindi cinema’s upcoming slate leans heavily on the familiar: sequels, remakes and mythological epics, often announced well before scripts or casts are finalised.

Akshay Kumar’s schedule illustrates the point well. He’s reportedly attached to a Priyadarshan-directed film inspired by Jim Corbett, positioned as a comic thriller and possibly his landmark 99th release before a planned 100th film — though which project claims that milestone remains unsettled. Alongside that sits Anees Bazmee’s next, a Golmaal 5 in development, and a Rohit Shetty film where Kumar is said to be playing a substantial villain role. Notably absent from any recent update is Hera Pheri 3, a project that has generated more announcement noise than actual movement.

The volume of Akshay Kumar productions in the pipeline raises a fair industry question: can output at this scale consistently deliver on story and content, or does quantity eventually work against quality? It’s not an accusation against any single film — it’s a structural concern about an industry that rewards volume and franchise recognition over the slower work of original storytelling.

A similar tension shows up in two upcoming comedies: Kunal Kemmu’s "Waaie" and a Kareena Kapoor–Prithviraj Sukumaran film reportedly heading toward a Part 2. Early teasers for the Kemmu film generated real anticipation — comparisons to his earlier hit Madgaon Express set expectations for sharp, background-driven comic writing. The subsequent trailer, by several accounts, didn’t fully deliver on that promise, landing as more conventional than the black-comedy tone the teaser implied. That’s a meaningful gap between marketing and material, and it’s worth watching whether the finished film closes it.

The Kareena Kapoor–Prithviraj project carries its own layer of confusion: persistent chatter has framed it as a remake, a claim both the director and Prithviraj have reportedly pushed back on, insisting the story is original. Public awareness of the film itself appears limited — a handful of influencers discussing the trailer doesn’t necessarily translate into broad audience registration that the film exists at all, which is its own marketing problem regardless of the story’s originality.

Adding to the release-calendar puzzle, both films are reportedly scheduled around the Ganesh Chaturthi festival period, a timing choice that has drawn skepticism given how competitive and unpredictable festival-season release slots tend to be in the Hindi market.

The Mythological Rush

Elsewhere, the mythological genre continues attracting major names and major money. A new project centered on Krishna, reportedly involving NTR-adjacent casting discussions before settling on other talent, is being backed by a production house better known for lighter, romantic "candy floss" films — a notable departure that will be worth watching for how the tonal shift is handled. Multiple Krishna-themed projects appear to be in parallel development industry-wide, suggesting a genre cycle rather than a single studio bet.

Studio Perspective

What connects Devgn’s Crime Patrol detour to the pile-up of remakes, sequels and mythologicals isn’t really about any one project’s quality. It’s about an industry currently more comfortable trading on recognisable names and formats than building anticipation from scratch. A star’s television cameo, a fifth instalment of a comedy franchise, a mythological epic backed by a studio pivoting from its usual genre — these are all, in their own way, bets placed on familiarity doing the marketing work that fresh storytelling used to do.

That’s not inherently a failure of ambition. Familiar formats can still produce good work, and audience appetite for comfort viewing is real and valid — it shouldn’t be dismissed as lazy taste. But when trailers underdeliver against teasers, when audiences can’t tell if a film is a remake or an original, and when a bankable star’s fee becomes the most concrete piece of information available about a project, it suggests the industry is currently prioritising the transaction over the story. The reaction to Devgn’s Crime Patrol stint may be less about him personally and more about audiences sensing, correctly or not, that a decision was made for reasons that had little to do with what would serve the show itself.

The more interesting question isn’t whether any single casting choice or sequel announcement was a mistake. It’s whether an industry can keep leaning on recognisable faces and familiar intellectual property indefinitely before audiences start asking what happened to the original ideas that built those stars and formats in the first place.

image : INSTAGRAM

— Studio CarryOnHarry Editorial Desk

Read more People’s Choice stories on Studio CarryOnHarry. Reporting via Live News Vault.

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People's Choice

Ramayana’s Ravan Problem: When Marketing Outpaces Meaning

Published

2 days ago

September 8, 2026

Johal

Ramayana’s Ravan Problem: When Marketing Outpaces Meaning

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Balle Balle Radio™ Entertainment Desk

A poster controversy around India’s most expensive film has exposed a deeper tension between visual spectacle and devotional storytelling — and raised questions about whether scale alone can carry a story audiences have known since childhood.

Somebody, somewhere, approved a poster of Ravan on Janmashtami. Somebody scheduled it to go live on the day India celebrates Krishna’s birth, with a caption declaring his rule over heaven, earth and the underworld. And somebody, presumably several rungs up the chain, spent that same evening scrambling to put out a corrective image of Ranbir Kapoor as Ram, calling him "our hero, our protector."

That sequence of events, more than the poster itself, is the real story behind the controversy now trailing Ramayana, the reported 4,000-crore mythological epic from producer Namit Malhotra and director Nitesh Tiwari, slated for a November release. The backlash to the Ravan poster was reportedly swift and intense enough to force same-day damage control. Fast correction is competent crisis management. But it doesn’t erase the original question: how did that poster get approved in the first place, and on that particular date?

A Familiar Story, A New Risk

The criticism doesn’t stop at one image. There have been complaints that the theatrical trailer itself gives Ravan more visual dominance than Ram — a choice that, whether intentional or not, cuts against how Indian audiences have traditionally related to this narrative. Ravan’s stature in the Ramayana has never been in dispute. He was a scholar, a devotee of Shiva, a figure of genuine power, and the epic is more interesting because its antagonist isn’t a cartoon villain. But there’s a meaningful difference between honoring an antagonist’s complexity and letting marketing flatten the story’s moral hierarchy. Once that line blurs, a reaction like this one becomes almost predictable.

There’s a second, quieter issue in the release plan. Reports suggest international audiences may see the film two days before audiences in India do. For a project built explicitly on Indian devotional identity and marketed heavily on cultural resonance, that sequencing is an odd choice — and it invites a fair question about who the release calendar was actually designed to serve.

All of this arrives at a commercially fragile moment. Some members of the lead cast have had recent box office disappointments. That’s not a comment on their ability as performers, but it does mean the film isn’t launching with a deep reserve of audience goodwill to absorb a controversy of this kind. In an industry where opening-weekend narrative can shape a film’s entire commercial life, that timing matters.

Coordination, Not Cynicism

It would be easy to conclude that the makers simply don’t understand or respect the material. That reading doesn’t hold up particularly well against what’s publicly known. Tiwari has a strong directorial track record, and Malhotra has reportedly spoken with real emotion about how personal this project is to him. Cynicism doesn’t usually look like that.

A more plausible explanation is a coordination gap — a marketing operation chasing dramatic, scroll-stopping visuals without enough sensitivity to devotional context, running parallel to a production that may be leaning on visual scale to solve what is fundamentally a storytelling challenge. Those are two different failures happening on two different tracks, and they’ve collided publicly at the worst possible moment.

That storytelling challenge is the more interesting problem, and the one likely to matter more once the controversy cycle passes. Reports describe the sets, costumes and war sequences as visually striking but emotionally thin. If accurate, that’s a bigger long-term risk than any single poster. Audiences don’t come to the Ramayana looking for narrative surprise. They come for the feeling — Sita’s abduction, Ram’s return, beats they’ve carried since childhood. No amount of computer-generated spectacle substitutes for that emotional familiarity if the film doesn’t earn it scene by scene. It’s worth noting that several smaller-budget mythological projects in recent years have connected with audiences precisely by leaning into sincerity rather than scale, which suggests the audience appetite for restraint hasn’t gone anywhere.

Studio Perspective

The more useful question isn’t whether the Ravan poster was a mistake — it clearly was, given how quickly it was walked back. The more useful question is whether ambition and coordination inside this production have actually lined up yet. Nothing in the available evidence suggests indifference to the source material. What it does suggest is a large, expensive machine where the marketing arm and the storytelling arm may not be talking to each other closely enough.

There’s still time before November to recut, rebalance and correct the Ram-Ravan visual dynamic, both in remaining promotional material and potentially in the edit itself. Whether that happens will say more about this film’s fate than the poster controversy ever will.

Because underneath the headlines, this was never really about one image posted on the wrong day. It’s about whether technology and budget can substitute for the emotional simplicity that has kept this story alive for centuries. Lanka can be rebuilt with computer graphics. The feeling of watching good triumph over evil cannot be manufactured the same way — and that feeling is still what audiences are actually paying to experience.

— Studio CarryOnHarry Editorial Desk

Read more People’s Choice stories on Studio CarryOnHarry. Reporting via Live News Vault.

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