Welcome to the Jungle, which stars over 30 mainstream actors from the Hindi film industry, was made for just Rs 115-125 crore, or so is the claim made by director Ahmed Khan.
The film, which stars Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Jackie Shroff, Disha Patani, Rajpal Yadav, among many others released in theatres a few days ago and has already collected over Rs 100 crore worldwide, as per trade tracker Sacnilk. In a new interview, Ahmed claimed that the film collected Rs 120 crore from its OTT rights, music rights before the release, and is now collecting profit.
Ahmed, in a chat with Times Now, claimed, “Welcome to the Jungle, with cast, action, songs, everything, I haven’t crossed more than Rs 115 crore to Rs 120 crore, or maybe Rs 125 crore. You count the interest money also. I haven’t crossed the budget. And that has been recovered from digital, satellite, music and overseas (rights). The film is even. Now, whatever the film is making, it’s the surplus. They’re completely benefiting from it.”
In another chat with Bollywood Hungama, he claimed that the shoot was wrapped up in just 75 shifts, with each shift of just eight hours. He claimed that in every shift he could only shoot for six to six and a half hours, as the remaining time would be spent on breaks.
Previously, a report on Bollywood Hungama claimed that Akshay Kumar did not take an upfront payment for the film, and instead came on board under a profit-sharing model. The copy claimed that the largest chunk of the budget was spent on production costs, which was around Rs 60 crore. The report also claimed that the cost of the cast was Rs 35 crore. The director and the technical crew were paid Rs 15 crore, and another Rs 15 crore were spent on print and publicity.
In an earlier chat with The Hollywood Reporter India, Ahmed had shared that he was managing approximately 700-900 people on set almost every day. “Beyond the core cast, you have their entourages – usually about five people per star. So, if you calculate 30 actors plus their immediate teams, you are looking at 150 people just on the actors’ side,” he said and added that they had to find two massive grounds adjacent to each other as they “needed space to park 50 vanity vans.”
The ensemble cast of Welcome to the Jungle consists of Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Jackie Shroff, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Aftab Shivdasani, Disha Patani, Raveena Tandon, Jacqueline Fernandez, Lara Dutta, Johnny Lever, Rajpal Yadav, Kiku Sharda, Krushna Abhishek, Kiran Kumar, Zakir Hussain, Farida Jalal, Daler Mehendi, Mika Singh, Urvashi Rautela, Yashpal Sharma, Shreyas Talpade, Vindu Dara Singh, and late Pankaj Dheer, among others.