Budget ₹20 Crores, Output Baahubali Range!!

Of course, the Malayalam industry is always known for churning out movies that would be made with a modest budget, but then the success would be big comparatively, unlike how Telugu films are made. While our biggest star films are being made with ₹150+ crores minimum, most of them are ending up as loss ventures. But in the Kerala film industry, even Mohanlal and Mammotty act in films made with ₹15-25 crore budget, and they end up collecting ₹50-75 crores minimum.

Talking about the same, producer Ravi Shankar of Mythri Movie Makers commented, “Once I went to Fahadh Faasil’s house for dinner, and he made an interesting comment. He told me: ‘In Kerala Industry, we always try to create something in just ₹15-20 crores, but achieve a “Baahubali” kind of result with that, rather than spending crores’. Telugu directors should make a note of this.

Well, if we look at the likes of Manjummel Boys and Premalu kinds of movies, they are made with less than ₹15 crores budget, but then, they have collected close to ₹200 crores from all the languages together. However, in Tollywood, such a phenomenon rarely happens. Even Tier 2 stars are also making films with ₹70-80 crore budget, and those films are collecting a couple of percentages less than that in their final run, from all the sources, including theatricals, OTT and other rights.

That said, many big production houses are giving hefty budgets to films that actually don’t need more than 20 crores budget. So, the cost control should first come from producers only.