India’s Gods Just Got a $500 Million VFX Budget

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🎬 Leeds1888 TLDR

• Ramayana's $500M budget makes it bigger than Avengers: Endgame

• DNEG brings Interstellar-level tech to Hindu epics

• Games involving Hindu Gods are being released and played on Global scale.

🌎 Big Picture

The budget of the recent Superman film was $225 million. Avengers: Endgame cost $350 million, but the upcoming Ramayana is bigger than that.   

We spent most of our childhoods reading about Shri Hanuman, who flew across oceans and carried mountains or even Krishna, who killed huge demons as a kid. They were passed down like family recipes.

But now, the same gods are showing up with Oscar-winning VFX and ₹4,000 crore budgets. 

That is $500 Million, bigger than the budget of flagship films of  Marvel and DC.
India’s mythology-based cinematic universe is no longer niche, religious, or “regional”. It's a franchise IP with global legs and it’s coming to an IMAX near you.

Helmed by Dangal director Nitesh Tiwari and backed by DNEG CEO Namit Malhotra (of Dune, Oppenheimer, Inception fame), the upcoming Ramayana clocks in at ₹4,000 crore ($500 million). Bigger than Endgame.

And it's being built using virtual production, environment scanning, and an 86-camera volumetric capture setup. You won’t get more of styrofoam palaces. No more green-screen gods. This is a story retold with NASA-grade fidelity.

For the first time, Indian studios are treating mythology as exportable IP which is something that scales across borders, formats, and generations.

📡 Market Signals

💸 Deal Flow

• ₹4,000 Cr invested in Ramayana with India’s biggest film budget ever

• Puranaverse animated IP in talks with Disney+ Hotstar, Netflix India

Signal vs Noise

Kalki’s Visual Bet Paid Off
In the ₹600 Cr budget, ₹230 Cr went into VFX
Studios across Taiwan, India, and Canada collaborated. Flying bikes, mechanical horses, and rebuilt ancient cities with 1,200+ VFX artists on the job.

Result: Global box office hit.

Ramayana’s Interstellar Tech
DNEG uses volumetric capture, 3D-scanned palaces, and digital actor doubles to build a photoreal Lanka. Same tech used in Interstellar and The Dark Knight.

The aim is to make the myth feel lived-in, global, timeless.

🦸 Bollywood’s MCU Moment
Studios aren’t chasing Marvel but building their own mythoverse.

Dubbing in Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin while planning streaming spin-offs.

📉 Adipurush Walked So Ramayana Could Fly
When it comes to bad dialogue and worse VFX, Adipurush was a masterclass in what not to do. But it proved there’s massive demand for myth retellings. Now, budgets and craft are catching up to ambition.

🧠 The Leeds Lens

Not all mythology scales the same but those that do, this is how it happens:

India’s new mythoverse from the beginning to Ramayana and Mahabharata succeeds because it starts deep (scripture) and climbs up with tech, format innovation, and narrative reach.

This is more than just IP monetization. It's cultural preservation with global ambition.

🎭 Pop Culture Pulse

• Hans Zimmer is giving music to Ramayana with Rahman.

• Brahmastra, at the time of its release was the highest earning film globally in its debut week.\

🎙️ What to Watch / Read / Hear

🎥 Watch:
 Videos of Smite Season 9. The game played on an international level has high-quality graphics and a storyline based on Hindu gods like Shiva, Kali, etc. It made a lot of headlines.

📖 Read:
“Historicizing Myths in Contemporary India: Cinematic Representations and Nationalist Agendas in Hindi Cinema.”

This is a scholarly book, but it will give you deep insights on the way contemporary cinema is working.

🎧 Hear:
Podcast: Namit Malhotra’s podcast (DNEG CEO) on why Ramayana will change the global perception towards Indian cinema.

📌 From the Archives

“This isn’t the first time gods hit global screens.”
Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama (1993) was Japan’s first anime co-production with India. Despite beautiful animation, it struggled to find a wide release. Today that same cross-cultural vision is finally mainstream.

🎤 The Closing Frame

This was Leeds1888.
For those tracking the intersection of mythology, media, and money — before it becomes the next cinematic universe.

Vipul Agrawal | Founder & CEO, Mugafi

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