Baahubali Producer Breaks Down The Production Cost Of Prabhas’ Magnum Opus: ‘Spent Rs 25-30 Lakh Daily’

Baahubali: The Beginning was released in 2015 and was followed by its grand sequel, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion 2 years later. The film starred actors like Prabhas, Rana Daggubatti, Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah

Bhatia and Ramya Krishnan in pivotal roles. The global blockbuster is making a grand comeback in theatres on October 31; however, this time, it’ll be re-released as a single film combining both parts of the epic saga.

Ahead of the release of Baahubali: The Epic, Shobu Yarlagadda, who co-produced both parts of the film with Prasad Devineni, shared the production cost of the majestic film and revealed how there was an in-depth discussion with S.S. Rajamouli, the film’s director, regarding the production budget. Talking numbers, the producer revealed that each day of the shoot costs around Rs 25-30 lakh.

Rajamouli’s Stance On Budget Cuts

Speaking to Gulte Pro, Shobu Yarlagadda offered a glimpse into his conversations with S.S. Rajamouli, revealing that although Rajamouli sometimes agreed to budget compromises, it didn’t happen all the time. He stated, “Nonetheless, there will be instances when he(Rajamouli) says, ‘I won’t compromise on this.’

Shobu explained his statement with an incident, “Take the Manohari item song, for instance. The original plan was to get a big star on that song. However, as the expenses were going up, we all started considering if we would have the song in the first place. Then Rajamouli said that the song was needed, but not a big star to feature it.”

The Real Cost Behind S.S. Rajamouli’s Magnum Opus Baahubali

Yarlagadda also revealed that the team spent a whopping amount of money during the shoot schedule, which spanned around 30-40 days. He said, “We spent Rs 25-30 lakh per day, and it spanned a 30-40 day schedule. In between, we paused the shoot for a day to discuss the costs. This is just the production I am referencing, not including CGI or other expenses. He said that there wasn’t much the team could do when it came to compromising, so the shoot went ahead with “a little bit of tightening and optimisations.” Adding further, the producer revealed, “There were times when we needed 500-600 people as warriors. So we got bodybuilders from Vizag who charged a reasonable amount…”

Not just that, he also mentioned that while shooting for Part 1, the team did not previsualise, either because it was too expensive or the team wasn’t familiar with the concept back then. However, for Part 2, they went to Los Angeles to previsualise the entire war sequence, which alone cost around Rs 2 crore.