Bollywood's biggest flop put entire film industry in debt, its language caused controversy, broken director quit cinema

Epic historicals have always been a favourote genre in Indian cinema. From Nausherwan-E-Adil and Mughal-e-Azam to Baahubali, grand films have always dominated the landscape of Indian cinema. And while a majority of these films have found success at the box office, the ones that have failed have done so pretty badly. This is the story of one such colossal failure, the biggest flop in Bollywood history, which almost took the entire film industry down with it.

Bollywood’s biggest flop film

Kamal Amrohi is known for making genre-defining films like Mahal and Pakeezah. After the release of the latter in the mid-70s, the filmmaker set his sights on making a biopic of Delhi Sultanate’s only female ruler – Razia Sultan. The film began production in 1975 and went through numerous cast changes before finally releasing in 1983 with Hema Malini, Dharmendra in the lead roles. It was made on a budget of Rs 10 crore (Rs 200 crore in 2023), making it the most expensive Indian film of the time. However, Raia Sultan tanked badly, earning only Rs 2 crore worldwide and becoming one of the biggest loss-making ventures of Hindi cinema. Many found the Urdu used in the film too difficult while others complained about the slow pace of the narrative. The bottomline was that Razia Sultan was a box office disaster.

How Razia Sultan put the film industry in debt

After the release and failure of the film, many financiers, distributors, and other investors facced heavy losses. The scale of the film meant that a substantial portion of the film industry suffered. A trade magazine at the time ran an article claiming that the film’s box office failure put the film industry into debt. But Kamal Amrohi countered it saying that any losses would be his, not the producers. The filmmaker also maintained that the long production period of the film meant that it provided jobs to hundreds of technicians for years

Kamal Amrohi after Razia Sultan

Kamal Amrohi always defended Razia Sultan, saying that the film had been misunderstood. He would say that every classic be it Mughal E Azam, Pakeezah,Sholay were termed flops. The critics could not digest Razia Sultan because it did not have the usual masala. However, financially, he was very adversely affected by the film. This was his last film. Amrohi took an extended break after the film before he began working on a film called Aakhri Mughal, reportedly a biopic of Bahadur Shah Zafar. However, the script was lost after his death in 1993. And thus, Razia Sultan remained Amrohi’s final film.