Over the years, several films made in India have had mega budgets and huge stars but failed to realise their potential at the box office. These disasters often end up giving their makers huge financial losses. Recent examples of mega films that failed to recover their costs include Ranbir Kapoor’s Shamshera, Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha, and Prabhas’ ambitious Adipurush. However, there is one film that outdoes all of these in terms of losses.
The biggest flop in Indian cinema history
Not Adipurush, but another Prabhas film holds the dubious distinction of being Indian cinema’s biggest flop. That film is Radhe Shyam. The romantic drama, which also starred Pooja Hegde, was released in 2022, with a reported budget of around Rs 300 crore. Hwever, the film managed a net earning of only around Rs 130 crore worldwide, giving the distributors losses of a whopping Rs 170 crore. As of now, Adipurush may just pip Radhe Shyam as the film has made just around Rs 325 crore net on a reported budget of Rs 500 crore. However, given that the film is still in theatres, it may escape that fate.
Radhe Shyam’s budget and box office gross
Radhe Shyam, directed by Radha Krishna Kumar, was shot simultaneously in Hindi and Telugu. The film starred Prabhas and Pooja Hegde, along with Bhagyashree, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Sathyaraj, Jagapathi Babu, Krishnam Raju, Sachin Khedekar, Murali Sharma, and Jayaram in supporting roles. The film had a mega budget of Rs 300 crore. However, it was a massive flop, earning only Rs 101 crore net in India and an estimated Rs 25 crore net overseas. It’s worldwide gross collection was also a disappointing Rs 144 crore.
Biggest flops in Indian cinema
Another mega flop was Akshay Kumar’s Samrat Prithviraj, which also released last year. The period action drama incurred losses of around Rs 140 crore. 2022 was a particularly bad time for Indian cinema as the third-biggest flop also released the same year. Ranbir Kapoor’s Shamshera showed losses of around Rs 100 crore. Other big flops in Indian cinema history include the Telugu film Acharya (Rs 80 crore), Kannada film Kabzaa (Rs 80 crore), Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha (Rs 70 crore) and Thugs of Hindostan (Rs 60 crore).
