Two weeks ago, the Yash camp was reportedly holding out for north of Rs 200 crore on Toxic's digital rights. Now the best offer on the table is said to be Rs 30 crore, and even that hasn't closed.

Bollywood Hungama, citing a source close to the production, reported that a leading platform had put Rs 150 crore on the table before release, an offer the makers turned down because they were banking on a theatrical blockbuster to push the number higher. That bet didn't pay off. Toxic opened on August 26 to unanimously negative word of mouth, and its India run, sitting around Rs 120 crore, is now expected to finish under Rs 250 crore. For a film carrying Yash's name and a reported budget built for pan-India scale, that's a number nobody around the project wanted to see.

The fallout has been swift. Per the same report, digital players are now offering as little as Rs 30 crore for the post-theatrical streaming rights across all languages, with Zee5 said to be the highest bidder currently in the running. Satellite recovery, meanwhile, is expected to be close to zero, a consequence of the film's largely adult-oriented storytelling, which limits its shelf life on television.

A new cut, and a harder sell

Bollywood Hungama's sources say the makers are now weighing a fresh edit specifically for the digital release, in the hope that a re-cut version fetches a better price than what's currently on offer. Whether that happens before or after a platform deal is signed isn't clear, and neither is which platform ends up with the film if Zee5's offer doesn't hold.

Industry estimates quoted in the same report put the total loss on Toxic at around Rs 300 crore, which, if accurate, would make it the costliest failure for a feature film in India to date. That's a claim worth flagging as an estimate rather than a settled figure. No studio or platform has gone on record with numbers, and Bollywood Hungama's reporting rests on unnamed trade sources.

The scale of the wipeout has been underlined elsewhere too. The film's English-language release reportedly sold just 450 tickets across the country and collected Rs 1.40 lakh, a number so small it's almost comic against a film of this size. Online, the reaction has leaned into the irony of it all, with plenty of people pointing out that a film called Toxic has turned out to be commercially toxic in the most literal sense.

For now, the ball is in the makers' court. A new edit takes time, and every week without a signed OTT deal is a week the film sits in limbo, still bleeding, with no satellite cushion to soften the landing. Whether Zee5 or anyone else actually signs on the dotted line, and at what number, is the thing to watch next.