Is Bramashtra really a success ? It is complicated!

Is 'Brahmastra' really a success? It's complicatedWritten By:  Kshitij Mohan Rawat

New Delhi Updated: Sep 13, 2022, 12:04 PM(IST)

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Ranbir Kapoor in a promotional image from 'Brahmastra'. Photograph:( Others )



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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The marketing and PR team of 'Brahmastra' has likely led you to believe that the movie is an out-and-out success. But the truth is more complicated than that. As mentioned above, the film's reported budget is Rs 410 crore or $51.7 million. This is just the production budget. Studios spend a lot of money on marketing and promoting the movie with trailers, advertisement campaigns, and so on. And behind 'Brahmastra' was Walt Disney Studios through its Indian subsidiary Star Studios. We do not know how much money was spent to make sure more and more people booked the tickets to the movie, but it was likely not inconsiderable.







Ayan Mukerji's 'Brahmastra' was marketed as the next big thing in Hindi cinema. Borrowing from everything from Hindu mythology to American movie franchises like Marvel Cinematic Universe and 'The Lord of the Rings', the film through trailers and promos, promised state-of-the-art visual effects and a cinematic universe called Astraverse to rival MCU. Starring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt in the lead roles, the film finally saw the light of day last week. The movie also had Amitabh Bachchan, Mouni Roy, and Nagarjuna Akkineni, in the cast. While it received indifferent reviews by critics, reception among moviegoers was more sanguine. Until now, the film's Hindi version has grossed an impressive Rs 143 crore ($18 million approx). 

This is doubly impressive since the movie was quite long by today's standard at around 167 minutes.

What is 'Brahmastra' all about?

The movie tells the story of divine, powerful weapons given to sages and warriors of India eons ago. The weapons represented either an element -- like fire, wind, light, and water -- or a diety like the Nandi Astra that harnesses the powers of Nandi.

The main plot begins with the introduction of Ranbir Kapoor's Shiva, who is a man with a mysterious connection to fire. A DJ by profession, he spots Alia Bhatt's Isha among the audience and falls in love with her. Shiva gets strange visions and this journey takes him and Isha to Varanasai and then in Himalayan foothills to discover a threat endangering all existence.

Apparently, there was a weapon more powerful than any other -- the 'Brahmastra' -- with the power to obliterate all life in the universe. One person wanted it all to himself but was stopped by another. In the process, the weapon was broken into three pieces, each of which was entrusted to members of a secret society called Brahmansh. The weapon will stay dormant until the pieces are joined. And the destruction of the cosmos will follow. 

The audience clearly forgave the film's muddled plot, atrocious dialogue, and decent but derivative world-building in favour of truly impressive visual effects from DNEG.

Also Read: 'Brahmastra' offers some awe-inspiring CGI action but is butchered by a dreadful script

How does 'Brahmastra' budget compare to others?

The movie was reportedly made on a budget of Rs 410 crore or $51.7 million. This makes it one of the most expensive Indian films ever, just 'RRR' and '2.0' are above it with production costs of Rs 550 crore ($69 million) and Rs 500 crore ($63 million)–₹570 crore ($71 million), respectively. As should be clear, 'Brahmastra' is the most expensive Hindi film to date. At the second position is Aamir Khan's 'Thugs of Hindostan' (and we know how that ended) with a budget of Rs 310 crore ($39 million). 

Some of these budgets look so inflated that it appears they are money-laundering schemes disguised as movies.

Also Read: Critically Speaking: Is 'Brahmastra' worth the hype?

Is 'Brahmastra' a success?

The marketing and PR team of 'Brahmastra' has likely led you to believe that the movie is an out-and-out success. But film economics and the truth is more complicated than that. As mentioned above, the film's reported budget is Rs 410 crore or $51.7 million. This is just the production budget. Studios spend a lot of money on marketing and promoting the movie with trailers, advertisement campaigns, and so on. And behind 'Brahmastra' was Walt Disney Studios through its Indian subsidiary Star Studios. We do not know how much money was spent to make sure more and more people booked the tickets to the movie, but it was likely not inconsiderable.

As mentioned above, the film's Hindi iteration has grossed Rs 143 crore or $18 million until now as per reports. This figure does not count all the other language versions, only Hindi. Taking a cue from the big Telugu and Kannada releases, 'Brahmastra' was also targetted at moviegoers down south with dubbed release in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.

As per Dharma, the film opened with Rs 75 crore worldwide or $9.4 million on the very first day. Many suggested the figure was suspiciously 'proper' to be true. And indeed, studios and distributors have a history of sharing inflate figures to send a subliminal 'everyone else has seen the movie, and you're missing out!' message to potential viewers

But whatever the true figures, the film will almost certainly not break even with its budget (inflated budgets are another trick to lure in moviegoers). However, box office returns are not the end of the road for movies' earnings. Once the film is out of theatres, it gets an OTT release on services like Netflix, Prime Video, or ZEE5. In addition to that, there are satellite rights and music rights through which producers can recover their money. Or the star of the film may let go of their fees to recoup the losses. Recently, it was reported that Aamir Khan let go of his fees of Rs 100 crore or $12.63 million to compensate for the flop that was 'Laal Singh Chaddha'.

https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-is-brahmastra-really-a-success-its-complicated-515653

No. of articles written before the completion of 1st week itself shows how big the success is.

Mind it, Box Office articles by websites that don't have a single idea about box office 😆

What’s complicated are the essays posted. They are long u don’t have cliff notes 😐

Tell us what really happened 

I don't even care anymore lol,the quality of the movie was such that there is no honour in boasting about its collections.

Dude I just shared the article! I didn’t write it ! It is funny people take the Bramashtra verdict so personally they start holding people accountable for sharing articles with different perspectives ! 

You seemed to take my comment/question very personal.