War 2 Budget Vs Box Office: What's The Verdict On YRF's Most Expensive Spyverse Movie?

War 2 On OTT: Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR star in YRF Spyverse's sixth entry. The action movie released over the Independence Day weekend alongside Rajinikanth's Coolie and has completed its box office run with poor reviews. It is now set for streaming and will arrive in multiple languages on Netflix on October 9. Here's a look at its budget vs box office comparison before its digital debut.

War 2: The first YRF Spyverse flop

The first three films in the universe - Ek Tha Tiger (2012), Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) and War (2019) - were released as standalone films. They were established as the part of the same universe of movies with Pathaan (2023). The movies have grown in scale and box office, with Pathaan currently being the highest grossing movie in the series.

Also read: Controversial Film That Skipped Release In India Finds Streaming Partner

Expectations were high when War 2 released. The team roped in Jr NTR from Tollywood to establish their footing in South India and boost collections. However, after taking a good start, the film crashed miserably. War 2 sank under the weight of poor reviews and bad word of mouth. Many called out its poor execution and shoddy VFX on which crores have reportedly been splurged. Its almost impossible to fathom how a movie that made over ₹200 crore in its first week crashed down to ₹27 crore collections in week 2 and ₹5 crore in week 3, followed by an eventual wipeout at the box office. War 2 collected ₹236.55 crore in India and ₹364.35 crore worldwide.

Also read: Deepika’s Hypocrisy On Choice Called Out Online After Hijab Ad

In comparison, its prequel War, released in 2019, collected ₹471 crore worldwide. War 2 is also one of the lowest grossing movies in the YRF franchise. While Ek Tha Tiger may have collected ₹320 crore (worldwide), the least by the numbers in the six-movie franchise, but the Kabir Khan directorial is a blockbuster by all measures, unlike War 2.

₹400 crore+ budget gone to waste

War 2 has been made on a reported budget of over ₹400 crore. It is also the most expensive film produced in the YRF Spy Universe so far. International locations and a massive VFX budget boosted the investment on this big-ticket spectacle, but it emerged as a box office underperformer. The reported budgets and box office collections of the other YRF Spyverse movies are listed here.

Ek Tha Tiger - Budget: ₹92 crore, Box Office (Worldwide): ₹320 crore 
Tiger Zinda Hai - Budget: ₹210 crore, Box Office (Worldwide):₹558 crore
War - Budget: ₹205 crore, Box Office (Worldwide): ₹471 crore
Pathaan - Budget: ₹270 crore, Box Office (Worldwide): ₹1055 crore
Tiger 3 - Budget: ₹300 crore, Box Office (Worldwide): ₹464 crore

Not only this, it is also said that the creative mind behind Spyverse, Aditya Chopra has intervened in the making of the franchise's next entry Alpha, starring Alia Bhatt, Sharvari and Bobby Deol, to ensure that the screenplay is tight. War 2 debacle has also put a question mark over heavy investments in the upcoming franchise movies Pathaan 2 and Tiger Vs Pathaan.