The Durandhar duology has made history. As of May 26, 2026, the two‑film series — Durandhar (2025) and Durandhar: The Revenge (2026) — became the first Indian film franchise to surpass ₹3,000 crore at the worldwide box office, with a cumulative gross of ₹3,019.35 crore (approximately $362 million USD).
Sometime in the next five months, the first images from a film set will be released to a public that has been waiting for them with a mixture of reverence, curiosity, and anxiety. The film is Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana, and it is, by any financial measure, the most audacious bet in the history of Indian cinema. The two-part epic carries a production budget of approximately ₹4,000 crore—roughly $480 million—which makes it not just the most expensive Indian film ever made, but one of the most expensive films ever made anywhere on Earth. The first part is scheduled for Diwali 2026. The second will follow in 2027. And the question that now hangs over every conversation in every trade circle in Mumbai is not whether the film will be good. It is whether the economics of global cinema can support a bet this large.