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Inside a Delhi Hanuman Ansh screening — Sanatani appeal, faith, FOMO, positivity
Hanuman Ansh beat the combined Day 40 earnings of both Dhurandhar films this week. At Delhi’s Odeon Inox, there were no promotional posters, but devotion and word of mouth had pulled audiences in.
New Delhi: UPSC aspirants, a spiritual healer, a sponsored office group celebrating the Jain festival of Samvatsari, and a woman who had not stepped foot in a theatre in the last 20 years. These were some of the audience members packed into the Odeon Inox multiplex in Delhi’s Connaught Place to watch the surprise hit Hanuman Ansh.
Produced on a shoestring Rs 2 crore budget, director Vishal Chaturvedi’s devotional Hindi film has performed something of a miracle at the box office. After a tepid opening on 7 August, it now ranks as the third-highest-grossing Hindi film of 2026, and the ninth-highest-grossing Indian film of the year. There are no big-ticket actors, suspenseful plot twists or promotional blitzes to explain its rise. On a Tuesday afternoon, the film saw a nearly packed hall at the multiplex, with a roughly 50:50 male-female ratio.
Sixty-five-year-old Sunita Verma came all the way from Old Delhi in what was her first visit to a movie hall in two decades. Hanuman Ansh seemed like a film that finally catered to her sensibilities. One of the big draws for her was that it was a clean film and a stark contrast to adrenaline-filled Bollywood movies that show graphic violence and super-charged sexuality.
“We don’t usually like other movies because they have a lot of violence, and are very loud. We try to stay away from the kinds of songs that are released these days,” Verma said, speaking also for the other older women in her family. “Par ye hamare matlab ki picture hai. We follow Sanatan Dharm, so this felt right for us.” She had decided to give the movie a shot at the behest of her children.
Hanuman Ansh surpassed the combined Day 40 earnings of both Dhurandhar films on 15 September. The low-budget film, which was earlier dismissed, has had a surprise late pick-up at the box office. The praise for the film spread largely through word-of-mouth publicity, infiltrating into WhatsApp groups, social media and RWA groups. It has raked in over Rs 231 crore in India so far. Yet at CP’s Odeon Inox multiplex, there was no promotional material for Hanuman Ansh to be seen. Multiplex staff said the film had never sent any posters for promotion.
