This week will see the release of 2.0 which will be on of the biggest films ever made in India as costs hit around 500 crore on release. The film has gone over budget as the American company doing its VFX went bust last year which caused a huge delay in the film and took its a budget to another level. The budget is more than the two Bahubali film put together. 

The film has cost 175 crore more than Thugs Of Hindostan which is the most expensive outright Hindi film of all time. Its always difficult to judge which films are the biggest ever but there are a few films that when released the amount they have to recover is so high that hardly any films have recovered that much prior to the release of these films.

The biggest films released in India in terms of costs are as follows,

Jhansi Ki Rani (1953) - This film had a budget of 60 lakhs including 55 prints costs which was insane as only one film had covered this amount till date and that was Chandralekha (1949) which was released in 2 languages. On top this film did not feature any box office draw of time. The film was a huge disaster at the box office.

Mughal-E-Azam (1960) - This legendary film cost around 1.25 crore on release with 100 prints and in time the cost went to 1.50 crore plus as a further 175 prints were taken over the next decade. When the film was released no film had ever recovered the amount this film took to make. If its comes to a push this was probably the most expensive film ever made in India.

Sholay (1975) - The biggest blockbuster that India has ever seen had a cost of around 2.50 crore on release with 150 prints but eventually the cost went to 3.50 crore plus as a further 500 prints apprx were taken out in time. 

Shaan (1980) - The makers of Sholay got together to make Shaan which cost around 6 crore and this sum had been recovered by only film which was Sholay. No other film had a worldwide share of 6 crore in 1980 barring Sholay. The film was called a huge flop at the time of release but was running capacity houses for weeks and eventually went on to recover its huge costs.

Ra. One (2011) - This superhero film was made at a cost of 135 crore which was a sum which had been recovered by just 1 or two films at time if we go by worldwide revenue. The film was liked by the audience but did manage to cover the huge costs.

2.0 (2018) - The VFX loaded is the first non Hindi film which joins the biggest budgeted films India has ever made. Bahubali would also have been in the list if but it was two films instead of one. Again only one film Bahubali - The Conclusion has recovered the budget of 2.0 and that was also a multi language film. A case can be made for Dangal having this recovery but there was minimal revenue coming back from China.

Note - The above are not the record budget holders as some films will have a record budget but at the time its beaten the previous record holder after a long time by a minimal amount. A bit like if the Bahubali - The Conclusion box office number is beaten in the next few years its huge but if its beaten in ten years time then that will hardly be a huge achievement.