Yash says Ramayana's Rs 4000 cr budget includes Hollywood promotions: 'Doing it for India'

The Rs 4,000 crore question

The headline number that has dominated discussion of Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana is the Rs 4,000 crore budget attributed to co-producer Namit Malhotra. Speaking on Aap Ki Adalat, Yash said the figure was widely misunderstood: it covers production for both films in the planned two-part series, plus a Hollywood-scale promotional campaign. "A budget equal to, or sometimes more than, the production budget is spent for promotions because it's global," Yash explained. The clarification matters because it reframes the cost as a full marketing-plus-production package rather than a pure production overrun, a distinction few Indian films have had to draw in public.

Malhotra himself has acknowledged the price tag is unprecedented. On Prakhar Gupta's podcast, he noted the combined budget for both parts would land at roughly $500 million, "which is over Rs 4,000 crore." He also said on the Game Changers podcast that he would be willing to spend three times that if needed, a claim made credible only because, by his own account, the first film has been completed without borrowing a single rupee.

Namit Malhotra's bankroll

The financial weight of the project rests on Namit Malhotra, whose company Prime Focus is co-producing with Yash's Monster Mind Creations. According to the article, Malhotra has a net worth of Rs 9,204 crore, a figure that puts personal capacity for the project on a different scale from the typical Indian producer. He has described the project as "not just a project or a business proposition," and said the idea took shape during the pandemic.

The funding model — self-financed, no debt, and tied to a single individual's net worth — is unusual for a film of this size, where studios typically rely on co-financing, distribution pre-sales, or debt. That structure gives Malhotra unusual creative control but concentrates risk. If the film underperforms, the financial hit is not diversified across studio partners or lenders, and there is no public-company balance sheet to absorb the shock.

Why Yash chose Ravana over Rama

The casting of Yash, the Kannada star of KGF, as Ravana was a surprise given his co-producer status. On Aap Ki Adalat, Yash argued that the antagonist must be formidable for Rama's victory to feel earned. "It's important to show Ravana's evilness to highlight Rama's goodness," he said, while adding, characteristically, that "no one can play evil better than me." He also claimed nobody would have played Rama better than him had he chosen to, but said the team set their egos aside.

The ensemble includes Sunny Deol as Hanuman, a personal favourite of Yash's because of the shared Karnataka connection, alongside Sai Pallavi as Sita, Arun Govil as Dasharatha, Lara Dutta as Kaikeyi, and Rakul Preet Singh as Shurpanakha. AR Rahman and Hans Zimmer are scoring the film together. Part 1 is slated for release this Diwali.