Before Earning ₹1,788 Crore, 'Baahubali' Left SS Rajamouli and Producers Burdened With ₹70 Crore Debt

SS Rajamouli's Baahubali film series happens to be among the most adored and popular in Indian movies. This series marked the first time an Indian film series earned more than ₹1,000 crore in terms of global income. However, its launch proved quite stressful for the actors, producers, and Rajamouli himself. In the Netflix documentary Baahubali: The Torchbearer, SS Rajamouli reveals that initially, the film was viewed as the biggest flop in the Indian film industry, meaning they thought their careers were over.

In the documentary, SS Rajamouli and producer Shobu Yarlagadda explain that they did not have a set budget while making the film. Shobu says that they continued having trouble raising money for the following day's shootings.

After a few days, daily expenses rose to 25 lakh rupees or more. "The cost of our four-day war sequence alone could have made an entire short film 12 years ago. We were spending around 1 crore rupees every four days."

Rajamouli explained that due to the film's high budget, its success could not depend solely on the Telugu states. He said, "We could not rely solely on the Telugu states to recoup our investment."

To make the film profitable, they were relying on it performing well in multiple languages. Ultimately, their search led them to Karan Johar. When Rana Daggubati told Karan about the film and showed him some stills, he immediately agreed to distribute it in the Hindi market.

However, the day of the film's release was terrifying. Shobu recalled, "Even on the day of the first part's release, we were still in debt of ₹70 crore. Even after our expenses and earnings, we were still in a loss of ₹70 crore."

Rajamouli said that the film received very good reviews in Hindi as well as in the US, Gulf countries, and other international markets. But we expected most of our earnings to come from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The reviews there were very poor. A photo went viral showing Prabhas holding Jandu Balm instead of a Shivalinga.

We couldn't understand what had gone wrong. I was completely blank. I spoke to a distributor and he told us about the industry's reaction. They were calling it the biggest flop in Indian cinema.

They were receiving similar messages. For us, it felt like the end of our careers. Recalling that day, Prabhas became emotional and said it was like a war. I don't know how the producers survived that day.

The good news was that the situation quickly changed that very evening. The film began to garner widespread praise, and within the next week, it broke box office records in the Telugu states, and its impressive performance continued in the Hindi market as well.

The Baahubali franchise began in 2015 with "Baahubali: The Beginning." Prabhas played a double role alongside Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah Bhatia, Ramya Krishnan, Sathyaraj, and Nassar.

The film received critical acclaim for its visual effects, acting, and Rajamouli's direction, becoming the highest-grossing Telugu film of all time. Its sequel, "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion," proved to be an even bigger hit, grossing approximately ₹1,788 crore worldwide and remains one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all time.