It’s been 2 years since one of India’s costliest films Ra One released in theatres, but the debate rages on to this day. Was Ra One a Hit or Flop? Don’t think that there has been a single day this question has not been asked by one of our many readers. Today, as the Shahrukh Khan – Kareena Kapoor starrer celebrates its 2nd anniversary, we hope to finally put an end to this debate once and for all.
Let’s start with the economics: The total investment on Ra One including print and advertising was Rs 135 crore. Eros International recovered a huge chunk of that investment when they sold the satellite and music rights of the film for Rs 40 crore. Since portions of the film were shot in United Kingdom, the UK government paid Rs 20 crore as subsidy (some trade analysts have quoted a figure of 25 crore). Home video rights must have fetched around 2 crore. The total non-theatrical revenue was approx Rs 62 crore.
Ra One Hit Or Flop?
Theatrical returns: The Hindi version of Ra One collected around 115 crore in India, regional dubbed versions collected 9 crore and total overseas business amounted to Rs 43 crore. The All-India distributors share including dubbed versions is 68 crore and overseas share is around 17 crore. In total, Eros recovered around 85 crore from theatrical business.
- Total Revenue – Rs 147 crore
- Total Investment – Rs 135 crore
- Total Profit – Rs 12 crore
When a film has actually made a decent profit, why did Shahrukh Khan himself say that it didn’t quite work as well as he expected it to. That is because, as a film Ra One was a complete failure, critics and audience thrashed it. For a film made on this scale and budget, it was expected to earn much more than it did. Also, a few individual distributors lost money, which isn’t usually the case for most SRK starrers. A few exhibitors who released the film on ‘fixed hire’ screens lost a bit of money. Ra One also under-performed in circuits like C.P and C.I and the distributor lost money. But all these losses put together isn’t big enough to call the film a ‘FLOP’.
In fact, Ra One did reasonably good business, the film’s total worldwide gross is around Rs 225 crore which is a huge figure even for films that release today. Only about 12 films have managed to collect 200 cr or more.
Like Rakesh Roshan’s Krrish 3 which releases next weekend, the risk that Shahrukh Khan took with Ra One was huge. The expectations were high, but the results were disappointing. But the very fact that a rejected film, recovered the investment that went into India’s most expensive film, is an achievement in itself. The film wasn’t a commercial failure, or even an above average grosser. Ra One was a HIT.
Note: SRK recovered a fair bit of money from all the record brand-tie up deals. We haven’t even taken that into consideration here.
for ra.one i respect srk coz he did everything for the movie..bt his hard work not appreciated..bt criticied by people ..
@TEAM INDICINE: PLEASE CLEAR MY DOUBT,
Whether A Film Is Hit Or Flop Is Determined By It’s Domestic Box Office Collection, Or Satellite Rights & Music Rights Are Also Taken In Consideration?????????
@indicine this tym post my comment..plz
@ghost
do u think that tv rights music rights revenues added to ra one to make it hit
if u think so then u are wrong
ra1 budget is 135 cr it fetches 114 net and that after taking distributor s share 63
ie it grossed 177 cr in total which gives it hit status
lets move to ur kites example
kites grossed 65cr total gross
kites budget is 60cr
the net gross is just 48 and that without taking distributors share
so you can see that kites is flop from all respects while
ra one is hit
Now Haters should shut their mouth. Everything is clear.
@indicine, if you state that raone was hit, then movies like, tees maar khan, khiladi 786, specila chabbis should also be hit as the total cost of production and the promotional expenses were less than the theatrical revenues, also if you are considering the satellite rights and music rights then also these films recovered more than the cost
@indicine i know your a diehard srkfan. you always biased for srk.indicine be honest to all actors .the raone budget is 135crore. it collected 115 crore in india 43cr overseas and worldwide gross is 225.hit films means the film which recover its budget and film collects doubles its budget if you give verdict on worldwide collections raone should have to collect 270cr+ worldwide to be a hit film but raone did only 225cr world wide how can you declare raone a hit? reply indicine and also verdict of an movie solely judged on indian boxoffice collection raone did only 115crores while its budget is 135crore how. can you declare raone a hit film.raone is a bigflop everyone knows it.
Ra.One is the bestest movie of bollywood for srk fans like me,even though the world puked on it. Silly was what srk looked as a superhero but still we fans will call it an epic stuff.
Ra.one collected 248cr worldwide …..It was Hit in India and SuperHit in overseas..Ra.one bagged the National award for BEST VFX…..SRK set a benchmark with his sci-fi superhero film which was the first tried in India….kab tak hum hollywood ki wire kheenchte rahenge…..We should be proud that our GLOBAL ICON SRK set a standard so that other people can also inspire and make more superhero movies in India….India is the largest film producing country in the world…why can’t we have many superheroes here???….Ra.one was an answer to that…I hope many more to come
Ha ha ha.. Look how d dogs r barking here… Dis article is enough to prove wat was ra.one’s fate… Foh ppl having deir individual opinion i wanna say keep it to urself…as it doest matter..
Itzz just ur hatred k u ppl cant see a shahrukh movie being a hit inspite of record negativity… Just like wid besharam n outimd(but both wer flops) dis year.
well said @X…
N foh dose asking about doubling its budget dey shd knw k foh high budget movies doubling its budget is not important… Consider dis year race 2 budget 70 crores n toal domestic net 93 cr(as per boi) 102 crores (official) n verdict semi hit.
Ett budget was 80 crores.. N according to ppl’s theory here it shd hav done a business of 240 crores to b called a blockbuster… Guyzz hav ur calculations right den comment on a movies verdict
Ra.One was a mega disaster noone can change that.
Salman’s Dabangg , Bodyguard, ETT, Dabangg 2 all got bad reviews stil they all crossed 130 crores
i think indicine must ask a question ,what made ra.one collect 114cr??
was it srk?was it vfx?no it was chammak challo song..nodoubt about it…entire promotion was done on chammak challo song..
ra.one was the worst film ever made or imagined in this whole world, srk is the worst actor ever to play a superhero, he should play daddy roles now or retire, i can even count how many wrinkles he has. kamaal r khan acts better than yashraj and dharma spoon fed srk.
raone called hit as it collects around 125 cr in india boxoffice and its big sum in 2011 budget was higher side but before pre release movie has got most of revenue
double standard srk fans who were criticising krrish 3 vfx , are now saying that srk company has best vfx in india lol chameleons, the same srk company has done vfx for k3. i hope ra.one 2 never comes out. akshay should replace srk in ra.one 2, oh wait the film can’t be called ra.one as its the villain name lol what a tragedy first time a superhero is named after the villain haha because the superhero isn’t exactly a superhero.
all those talking abt budget & all, read this article 4m boi http://www.boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=321&
to me frankly ra one was a flop if any one says that tv rights music rights and other non box office earning in total makes a film hit den joker was a hit tmk was a blockbuster,himmatwala was a hit.it is true dat srk brought some new things in bollywood by ra one bt it is also true dat ra one is a flop not disaster bt sure shot flop.
Hmm nice article indicine.. But still many haters are criticizing the verdict.. @to all, i think boxoffice verdict criteria is different for different movies as per their budget.. For example a low to medium budget movie it has to recover all its investment from india theatrical only for attaining a hit status. I mean to say that a movie verdict is decided by its domestic collection only if it is a low budget movie. If the movie is of high budget, then you have to consider other sources of income also like overseas collection, satellite rights etc.. Otherwise every big budget movie will suffer. Just for example consider the box office performance of housefull2. Its budget was 72 crs, and its india collection was 113 crs with a distributor share of 60 crs. So it didn’t recover its investment from india theatricals, but it was a super hit. How? Because it was a high budget movie and its other revenues were also considered. It was same case with some other movies also like don2, znmd, bol bachchan etc.. Again krrish3 and dhoom3 are having budget of more than 100 crs. So for them to recover their cost they need to collect atleast 200 crs from india. So do you think that at anything below 200 crs they will not be declared hits? Yesterday itself indicine published that at more than 120 crs krrish3 will be hit. How? Its because other sources of income is considered. Some people are saying that based on this criteria some akshay kumar movies like khiladi786, spl26, etc are hits. These akshay kumar movies were low to medium budget movies and inspite of that they didn’t recover their price from domestic collection, so you cant call them hits. Indicine plz publish..
This is the case to judge movie verdict than khiladi 786 should be super hit becoz the budget of movie is around 45 crore and domestic collection 70 cr music rights 8 cr satellite rights around 35 cr total 113 cr . . . . And same case for all akshay movies and other actor flop movies . . . .
Wow! It surely is a very debatable topic. Personally, I loved the VFX and technology used in the film, but the story was weak.
I think the budget was 125 core (according to SRK himself), and around 50 crores were spent in promotion . It did recover its investment by its theatrical run + satellite rights + subsidy + other.
Was it a failure for the producer? No. But, it wasn’t a profitable film for the distributors, either, who lost their money, which shouldn’t be a case for a ‘Hit’ movie.
By my knowledge, a film is a box office hit if it recovers all its investment through its theatrical nett collections, and additionally makes good amount of profits. If it does not make high profits but at least recovers its investment, it is termed as ‘average’. If it cannot even recover its investment, it is labelled as a ‘flop’. A movie’s ‘box office’ fate is only decided by its theatrical collections, not its TV rights or anything else, if you include its satellite rights etc, then almost every movie recovers its investment through their pre release revenue, but they are not called successful or hits.
So, it did make SRK some profit, but it does not deserve to get a ‘Hit’ status at the box office in my opinion.
Hahahah! Haterzzz.. You got the logic now !
So stop barking!
#Indicine thank you very much to post this important result
Big budget movies like Ra.one or Krrish3 don’t have scope to double their collection to get HIT status
thats why if they makes any profit
it will be consider as a hit
All costs of Krrish3 is 115 cr.
So krrish3 needs 230 cr. To be HIT and 345 cr. To blockbuster
since its impossible
so if Krrish3 recovers its budget it will get Hit status and 200 cr. Means Blockbuster
indicine,distributor share must b over 70cr as ra1 collected over 92cr in first week hence the first week dist share 55cr bcs ss did remarkble bizz,ss 1st wk share 70% nd multiplex 52%,uk gov paid 28cr,satelite 37cr nd music 7cr,overseas over 50cr given by taran,ra1 was the first superhero worldclass movie which only dare king srk to do it,otherwise k3 hsnt come,srk did somthing new nd lift bolywod to another level,indian audience still stuck with desi masala movie thts y ra1 fail to colect wot it shld b
In that sense non of the today’s films are flops. One way or other every film recovers its cost.
if ra.1 is hit thn spl26 is blockbuster and omg is atbb….shame on indicine ..
All SRK fans crossed their limits in abusing n bashing
other stars…even hrithik who manages very good relation
with srk n always praises him even at the time of ra1 he
praised srk…but what he gets in return??? srk fans
abusing hrithik n making fun of him repeatedly at every
site…many rithikians understand this thing that’s y they
are not having any respect or love for srk….sorry but SRK
is one of brilliant actors we have in our country but his
fans are doing their best job in degrading their own hero…
but we hrithik fans don’t have any prob if k3 beats CE or
not…becos we bilieve in quality…we want k3 to be
remembered all the time…records are just numbers
nothing else….I love my hrithik becos of his attitude his
sort of films his work his dedication his humbleness his
fighting back attitude….#Hrithik_Rules_Forever_Our_
hearts
Verdicts are given strictly only on the basis of domestic theatrical business.
The article it self says the movie is a Hit, we are in 2013 and we still talk about the movie and even the songs of the film still runs at the disco’s, what more people compare the movie with Krish3 just bcoz people remember. Hands off to Ra.one, it was a challenge to release the movie with one man show and re collect the investment.
@beingsallufan, thanks bro for providing the link… It was superb explanation regarding box office verdict. Now i understood how ghajini became atbb and raone became a hit.. So as per boi, if you declare the verdict according to the budget of the movie then ghajini was not even a hit, it was above average grosser.. But boi passes the verdict of the movie as per their release size and how it earns per print per screen in india.. And as per this ghajini became atbb and raone was hit. But haters will talk only about raone as they desperately want a flop from srk which is impossible..
@indicine – a film’s verdict is solely based on indian boxoffice collection.. why are you including non theatrical revenue??? in that case no movie is a flop.. every movie compensates its production costs through non theatrical revenue.. going by your logic then every movie is a hit.. even himmatwala and besharam are hits then.. for me there is simple mathematics, ra.one budget was 135 crore and it collected 115 crore at the indian boxoffice, hence it is a flop.. it is the norm, the verdict of a film is given on only indian boxoffice collections.. i dont know why you are so desperate to declare it a hit..