A small-budget devotional drama with no star cast has quietly pulled off one of the biggest box office surprises of 2026, and the industry is still trying to figure out how.
"Hanuman Ansh," a biopic on the life of the revered spiritual saint Neem Karoli Baba, has crossed the ₹100 crore mark at the Indian box office - a milestone that would be unremarkable for a big-ticket Bollywood release, except that this film was made on a budget of less than ₹2 crore. The film hit the century on its 31st day in theatres, an achievement trade watchers are calling one of the most improbable box office stories in recent Hindi cinema history.
A Rocky Start That Nobody Predicted Would End Like This
The film, written and directed by Vishal Chaturvedi, opened in cinemas on August 7 to almost no fanfare. It released on just 25 screens and earned a modest ₹10 lakh on day one. Its first week wrapped up at around ₹1.08 crore, and the second week actually saw collections dip further, to roughly ₹40 lakh. By most industry yardsticks, the film looked destined for a quiet, forgettable exit from theatres within a fortnight.
Then, in its third week, something shifted. Word of mouth around the film's devotional storyline began to spread, and footfalls started climbing steadily rather than dropping off the way most theatrical runs do. The film's screen count grew from those initial 25 screens to more than 6,000 by its fifth week, an expansion almost unheard of for a film with no recognisable stars.
By day 26, the film's India net collections stood at roughly ₹54 crore. Less than a week later, that number had jumped past ₹61 crore, and the momentum kept building through the following days. On its fifth Sunday - day 31 - the film crossed the ₹100 crore net mark in India, with trade tracking website Sacnilk pegging its total gross collection at over ₹117 crore.
Beating Films With Far Bigger Budgets and Bigger Names
What has made the run especially striking is the company "Hanuman Ansh" has kept on daily collection charts. On several days through its extended run, the film's single-day numbers outpaced those of major theatrical releases with established stars and marketing budgets many times its size, including recent big-banner titles running in cinemas alongside it.
No Stars, No Marketing Blitz - Just a Debutant Lead
The film stars Shobhinaw Satyaa, an FTII graduate who spent nearly a decade working behind the scenes in the Hindi film and television industry, including stints on shows like "CID" and "Ragini MMS Returns." Satyaa was originally attached to the project's crew before landing the lead role after impressing Chaturvedi in a screen test - a twist that has since become part of the film's underdog narrative. He plays Neem Karoli Baba, revered by devotees as an incarnation of Lord Hanuman, across the arc of the saint's life. The cast also includes Vihaan S. Hegde, Chandan Anand, Purnima Tiwari, Anil K. Rastogi and Gulshan Pandey.
The story traces the journey of Lakshmi Narayan, a spiritually inclined boy in pre-Independence India who leaves home after his mother's death in search of God, wandering through temples, forests and villages before years of devotion and service transform him into the figure known as Neem Karoli Baba, or Maharaj-ji.
The Director's Fee Waiver and a Five-Month Fruit Diet
In a recent conversation on The Raunac Podcast, Chaturvedi - who both wrote, directed and produced the film - revealed some of what went into making it. He said that because he wore both the director's and producer's hats on the project, he chose to waive his own directing fee entirely.
He also described the discipline the team observed during the shoot. The set, he said, was kept completely vegetarian, and the cast and crew recited the Hanuman Chalisa every day during production. Chaturvedi added that in the roughly four-and-a-half months leading up to the film's release, he personally followed a fruit-only diet.
The film was officially announced on February 20, 2026, and was conceived from the outset as the first instalment of a planned trilogy, based on Chaturvedi's own book, "Divine Detour."
Celebrity Endorsements and a Growing Cultural Moment
The film's word-of-mouth wave has been amplified by a string of public endorsements. Actor and filmmaker Kangana Ranaut described it on her Instagram Stories as "not a movie" but "a satsang," praising its interwoven real-life accounts of people connected to Neem Karoli Baba. Former cricketer Virender Sehwag reportedly watched the film with his child and praised it, prompting Chaturvedi to publicly say he hoped Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma would get a chance to watch it too.
Neem Karoli Baba's legacy has long carried international resonance - Apple co-founder Steve Jobs famously travelled to India and spent time at the saint's ashram before returning to found Apple, a connection often cited in coverage of the saint's global following. That built-in cultural and spiritual pull appears to have fed directly into the film's audience turnout, particularly among devotional and pilgrimage circuits.
What Comes Next
Buoyed by the film's domestic success, "Hanuman Ansh" is set for an international theatrical release on September 11, with Hombale Films - the banner behind pan-India hits - handling its overseas distribution. Announcing the release, Hombale Films said the "spiritual journey of Maharaj-ji reaches the world" as the film heads to global audiences.
Chaturvedi has also confirmed that a sequel is already in the works. Speaking to audiences at a multiplex screening in Agra, he said "Hanuman Ansh 2" would trace further chapters of Neem Karoli Baba's life, beginning with his birthplace of Firozabad before moving through Agra, Mathura and other locations tied to his spiritual journey. Satyaa is expected to reprise his role in the follow-up.
For an industry constantly recalibrating what makes a hit - star power, marketing spend, opening weekend numbers - "Hanuman Ansh" has offered a rare counter-example: a film that took over a month to find its audience, spent almost nothing to do it, and ended up outperforming productions many times its size.
