The days of television and OTT being second fiddle to cinema are long behind us. Over the last few years, the salaries of the performers in web series and the productions’ overall budgets have increased. In fact, some of the most expensive web series today rival big films in terms of production costs. The most expensive Indian web series ever made dwarfed the likes of Animal and Dunki, with the lead star himself taking home a record remuneration.
India’s most expensive web series is...
Rudra: The Edge of Darkness, Disney+ Hotstar’s Hindi adaptation of the British show Luther, holds the distinction of being the most expensive Indian show on OTT. The series has a reported budget of Rs 200 crore, much higher than anything else on the Indian streaming space. As per a Times of India report, of this, Rs 125 crore was charged by the show’s lead star Ajay Devgn himself with the remainder going into production and marketing costs as well as the salaries of the other cast.
How Rudra’s budget dwarfs Bollywood films
Interestingly, this makes Rudra’s budget higher than some recent big Indian films like Dunki (Rs 85 crore) and Animal (Rs 100 crore). Even Aamir Khan’s ambitious Laal Singh Chaddha had a budget of Rs 180 crore, lower than that of Rudra. Other recent Indian films with budget less than Rudra season 1 include Gadar 2 (Rs 60 crore), Sam Bahadur (Rs 50 crore), Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (Rs 132 crore).
All about Rudra The Edge of Darkness
Rudra is the Hindi adaptation of Luther, the British crime thriller that stars Idris Elba as a London police detective. In Rudra, the role is played by Ajay Devgn. The show, directed by Rajesh Mapuskar, also stars Raashii Khanna, Esha Deol, Atul Kulkarni, and Ashish Vidyarthi. The first season premiered on Hotstar in March 2022.
