Shah Rukh Khan is gearing up for a big clash against Prabhas’ Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire, and Ranbir Kapoor is ready for the release of his gangster drama Animal. However, guess what’s common in Ranbir and SRK’s films? We’ll get to this interesting observation very soon.
Shah Rukh Khan has delivered two blockbusters this year – Pathaan and Jawan, channeling his rough, macho side, the actor is getting ready with Dunki, a Rajkumar Hirani film, which goes easy on the action and highlights the drama.
Dunki seems like a breath of fresh air already amidst all the chest-thumping this year, starting right from Yash Raj Films’ Pathaan, followed by Gadar 2, Jawan, and Tiger 3. The streak will continue further with Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal featuring Ranbir Kapoor.
A lot of buzz has been recently created by the film’s reported budget, which is said to be only 120 crore! This clearly means that the social drama is Shah Rukh Khan‘s second cheapest film after Chennai Express in the last 10 years as the lead! This number is important since the industry saw a huge leap in budget economics in the last decade. Similarly, Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal has been mounted on a budget of only 100 crore!
With films mounting on a budget of 200 – 300 crore and the superstars who started charging 100 crore per film sharing profits, the business model to expect returns and register profits has become a rare phenomenon. Even a film like Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan could not earn profits due to an inflated budget.
The same happened with a lot of biggies where superstar films could not make profits for their producer. However, Shah Rukh Khan’s Dunki & Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal seems to bring back the old medium-budget economics for superstar films. If we exclude the marketing and the promotion cost, Dunki amounts to only 75 crore. As the film amounts to a total budget of only 120 crore and Animal rides on 100 crore.
This is such a silver lining in the age of films as costly as 600 crore for Prabhas’ Kalki 2898 AD and around 300 crore for Salman Khan’s Tiger 3. Even Prabhas’ Salaar has been mounted on a budget of 250 crore.
In fact, when we tried to research, we found that in recent years, superstars have been able to make a lot of money for their producers and themselves if the budget of the films has been kept in check. So Shah Rukh Khan and Ranbir Kapoor have actually aimed for a sensible budget range for their films, which upcoming directors and producers might follow.
Here’s a list of all the superstar films that were made on a budget range of 70 – 125 crore in the last ten years, and the profit they yielded at the box office was unimaginable!
Note: Box office numbers are based on estimates and various sources. Numbers have not been independently verified by Koimoi.
Check out the list of the most profitable films of 2023 here.
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