Prabhas and Anushka Shetty's look in Baahubali - The Conclusion
Prabhas and Anushka Shetty's look in Baahubali - The ConclusionTwitter/ssrajamouli

SS Rajamouli's Baahubali is a landmark for the Indian cinema for its grandeur, quality and for the world-class technology that was used in the film for war sequences, apart from its commercial success.

The multilingual movie was released in July 2015 in four languages – Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Malayalam. All the four versions had set the box office on fire and remains the highest grossing movie of South India. Yet, the movie did not reap in profits for the producers, as per its lead hero Prabhas!

Prabhas has made a confession during the promotion of Baahubali 2 that the first instalment of the movie failed to give profits despite its dream run in theatres across the country. "The producers would have been finished had the film flopped. That's why we were all tensed. The film had to be a blockbuster, nothing less. Even with all the massive run at theatres, the producers didn't make profits, " he said in an interview. 

Revisiting Baahubali Numbers
The makers of Baahubali had carried out lengthy promotions for the first part and they fetched around Rs 156-166 crore from the sale of theatrical, audio, digital and other rights, as per trade tracker Andhra Box Office. Read: The Lifetime Collection of SS Rajamouli's film

Upon theatrical release, Baahubali shattered endless box office records and became the first South Indian movie to touch Rs 500-crore mark and third biggest grossing Indian movie at the worldwide box office after PK and Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

SS Rajamouli on Baahubali set
SS Rajamouli on Baahubali setPR Handout

Baahubali, which also has Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty and Tamanna Bhatia in the leads, raked in over Rs 510 crore in India alone and over Rs 90 crore from overseas. Despite all these records and gigantic box office numbers, it is surprising to note that the movie did not reap profits.

Nonetheless, the makers are in the profit zone from the second instalment by producer Shobu Yarlagadda's own admission. However, his claims about the budget of the flicks is contradicting  what they had revealed before.

They had told the media earlier that the combined budget of two versions stood at Rs 250 crore. Now, the producer says that they shelled out Rs 450 crore on two parts of SS Rajamouli's flicks.