The Neem Karoli Baba biopic added over Rs 14 crore on its sixth Sunday alone, a swing few predicted after its opening three weeks made barely Rs 10 crore.
Hanuman Ansh has broken past the Rs 200 crore mark in India, and it's done so after a start that had many writing the film off entirely.
The Neem Karoli Baba biopic, starring Shobhinaw Satyaa and directed by Vishal Chaturvedi, pulled in another Rs 14.46 crore net by 6 pm on its sixth Sunday, September 13, pushing its domestic total to Rs 206.59 crore. Worldwide, the gross now stands at Rs 244.07 crore, according to DNA India's tracking of trade numbers.
That's a sharp jump from where the film stood a day earlier. Through its first 37 days in theatres, Hanuman Ansh had made Rs 192.13 crore net domestically and Rs 236.50 crore worldwide. One single Sunday added nearly Rs 15 crore on top of that. For a film that opened on August 7 to muted business, this kind of jump six weeks in is the actual story, not just the round number.
Rewind to the opening stretch and this looked like a film headed nowhere fast. Hanuman Ansh made roughly Rs 10 crore across its first three weeks combined, numbers that sink most theatrical releases without a trace. Then word of mouth kicked in, and kept kicking in, week after week, turning a quiet devotional drama into one of 2026's genuine sleeper hits.
The film follows a grieving young man named Lakshmi Narayan, who sets off in search of answers after his mother's death, travels across North India, and eventually becomes the saint remembered as Neem Karoli Baba. His teachings on love and service found some unlikely admirers over the decades. Steve Jobs reportedly travelled to India in 1974 looking for him, and Mark Zuckerberg later visited Kainchi Dham, the ashram tied to the saint, said to be on Jobs's advice during a difficult period. Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma have made the trip as well, part of a longer list of Indian names drawn to the ashram.
Hanuman Ansh went overseas on September 11, opening a fresh market just as its domestic run kept climbing. Six weeks in, the film is still adding Rs 14-15 crore on a single day, numbers you'd expect from a big Friday opening, not a sixth Sunday.
What happens next depends on how much longer that word of mouth holds. Devotional cinema has had an inconsistent run at the Indian box office over the years, hits and misses in roughly equal number, but Hanuman Ansh has already outlasted its own weak opening by a wide margin. Whether it pushes past Rs 250 crore worldwide, and how the new overseas numbers add up, should become clear within the week.
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