The Rs 2 crore Neem Karoli Baba biopic pulled in Rs 10 crore on its fifth Friday, according to DNA India's tally, edging past Dhurandhar's Rs 8.50 crore mark from last year.
Five weeks in, and Hanuman Ansh is still adding zeroes nobody expected. The devotional drama on Neem Karoli Baba earned Rs 10 crore on its fifth Friday, according to DNA India, which called it the biggest fifth Friday collection by any Indian film on record. That number pushed past the previous high, Rs 8.50 crore, set by Ranveer Singh and Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar.
The film, directed by Vishal Chaturvedi and led by Shobhinaw Satyaa, has now crossed Rs 82.88 crore net and Rs 97.77 crore gross in India, per the same report. That's on a production budget DNA India puts at roughly Rs 2 crore. Do the arithmetic and there isn't another film in 2026 that comes close on returns.
The fifth Friday chart DNA India laid out has some familiar names trailing behind. Vicky Kaushal's Chhaava sits third with Rs 6.50 crore. Amar Kaushik's Stree 2 is fourth at Rs 3.25 crore. And a title listed as Dhurandhar 2 rounds off the top five at Rs 2.50 crore, though it's worth flagging that DNA India's own piece credits the original Dhurandhar, not a sequel, with the Rs 8.50 crore figure it says Hanuman Ansh has now beaten. The report doesn't reconcile that, so treat the fifth-place entry with some caution until the figures are cleaned up.
What isn't in dispute is the shape of the run. A film that opened small has kept filling seats week after week, and DNA India attributes that to repeat viewership and word of mouth rather than any late marketing push. There's been no viral trailer moment, no controversy, none of the usual ingredients that get a film talked about on a Monday morning. Just theatres that keep selling tickets on a Friday five weekends out, which in trade terms is rarer than a big opening.
The film isn't done yet. It's set for a global release on September 11, taking Hanuman Ansh beyond Indian screens for the first time. Whether overseas audiences respond the way domestic ones have is the next data point worth watching, and it'll say something about whether this is a story about a specific film's word of mouth or about a wider appetite for devotional cinema that the trade hasn't fully priced in.
For now, the numbers speak for a film nobody was tracking in week one and everybody's citing in week five. Rs 2 crore in, Rs 82.88 crore and counting out. The ledger alone makes the case.
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