Hanuman Ansh beats Toxic: A Rs 2 crore film pulls off a stunning box-office upset

It's incredible to see a Rs 2 crore film doing the kind of business that films starring the biggest and most powerful stars don't manage these days. Devotional film Hanuman Ansh is writing a box-office story that will be difficult to repeat for a very long time. Because what it did on its 25th day at the box office was some other kind of historic achievement: beating Yash's Toxic in the Hindi belt.You know what Toxic is, and how big it is. It's one of the most anticipated films of the year - the kind that got a worldwide release, was promoted in the US and other parts of the world, had multiple promotional events and features a star cast that is nothing short of massive. It's an out-and-out commercial entertainer, a film that was always expected to open at Rs 100 crore. And it did. But what happened later?After wrapping up its extended opening weekend at Rs 214.10 crore nett in India and Rs 293.20 crore worldwide, the Yash-starrer faced a remarkable drop in collections on Day 6 - its first Monday. And that's where Hanuman Ansh froze its box-office moment.Toxic's Hindi collection on Day 6, as reported by trade website Sacnilk, was Rs 4.40 crore. Hanuman Ansh, meanwhile, swept in Rs 5.50 crore - on Day 25. Read that again. This is where the story gets interesting. Toxic may have arrived with Yash, massive scale and all the machinery of a big-ticket release behind it, but on this particular day, a film that had been quietly building its audience for 25 days managed to pull ahead. And that's not because Toxic has been rejected by the Hindi audience - far from it. The film has continued to find an audience despite the mixed chatter around it. Which makes Hanuman Ansh's Day 25 feat even more remarkable.It gets even more interesting when you dig deeper into the screen count. Toxic started its journey with a massive footprint of 24,579 shows across India on Day 1. However, by Day 6, that number had dwindled to 13,400 shows, marking a sharp reduction of approximately 45.4 per cent in less than a week.Conversely, Hanuman Ansh followed the opposite trajectory. Starting with only a few hundred shows during its initial release, the film has seen its screen presence explode due to public demand. By Day 25, it was still running across 6,587 shows.This means that even though the screen count for Hanuman Ansh has risen, it is still almost half of what has currently been allotted to Toxic.A big opening can get a film off to a flying start, but what happens after that is what really tells the box-office story. Toxic had a blockbuster beginning, raking in Rs 101.10 crore on Day 1. But the momentum didn't sustain at the same pace, with its occupancy dropping 17.1 percent by Day 6.Hanuman Ansh, on the other hand, has turned the tide by focussing on steady growth. With a total India nett collection of Rs 45.28 crore and a gross of Rs 53.43 crore so far, the film's ability to outperform a Day 6 blockbuster on its own Day 25 is a testament to the power of sustained audience appreciation over pure marketing might.This is simply incredible. Because Hanuman Ansh had almost everything going against it. No buzz. No star. No popular story. No obvious pull among the audience. And yet, once word-of-mouth did its work, there was seemingly nothing stopping the film.The devotional drama, which opened to just Rs 10 lakh on August 7, has witnessed a remarkable turnaround three weeks into its theatrical run. On Day 24, the film collected an estimated Rs 12.75 crore nett (gross minus taxes) across 5,363 shows, its highest single-day collection so far. This took its India gross to Rs 47.33 crore and net collection to Rs 40.13 crore, according to trade website Sacnilk.Interestingly, the situation involving Hanuman Ansh and Toxic proves only one thing that remains constant when it comes to gauging a film's box-office performance, even in the post-Covid dynamic: word-of-mouth.One film's loss is another's gain. And in this case, a Rs 2 crore devotional film has managed to steal a box-office moment from one of the year's biggest tentpoles.- EndsPublished By: Vineeta KumarPublished On: Sep 1, 2026 12:01 IST