‘Never thought that we would survive even one day opposite Toxic’: Hanuman Ansh producer

Hanuman Ansh has become one of the biggest surprises at the box office this year, defying expectations despite competition from bigger releases like the Yash-starrer Toxic. Producer Ragini Sona shared the film's difficult theatrical journey in an exclusive interview with SCREEN. She recounted how Vishal Chaturvedi, the director, was promoting the film when they faced the possibility of losing their theatrical run.

Ragini said, "Vishal was out with the team on a road journey to promote the film. He said, ‘We are going to be out there, in the theatre, with the people. This is our journey.’ And, I was a bit emotional, and I said, ‘You cannot do this.’ At that time, the movie was almost out of theatres. Just a few hours before in the night, we decided to continue."

The first week of the film performed as expected, with 350 theatres showing it. However, the second week saw a sharp drop in the number of theatres to just 25-30 due to the release of two other big films, Awarapan 2 and Toxic. Despite this, the film's business did not fall, giving the team hope. After much discussion and convincing distributors, they chose to continue the theatrical run, which eventually proved successful.

Hanuman Ansh also had to compete against Toxic, a much bigger production. While the team acknowledged the fear of going up against such a formidable film, they never wanted Toxic to do badly. Instead, they hoped for the success of all films to benefit the industry collectively. Ragini concluded, "We never thought that we would be able to survive even one day opposite Toxic.

We thought that our film will work steadily alongside Toxic and this will be our journey together." As of Day 43, Hanuman Ansh has grossed over Rs 293.30 crore in India, with a worldwide gross collection of 316.30 crore.