Kanagana Ranaut, or as many may know her as the ‘Queen’ of Bollywood, made it to the theatres earlier this year with ‘Emergency,’ and now the same film has made it to the OTT platform. It was earlier scheduled to release on OTT on March 17, but in a sweet surprise it landed a couple of days earlier.
The film, upon its theatrical release, was praised for its unbiased portrayal of historical facts and Kangana Ranaut earned appreciation for her sheer talent both as a director and actor. Also, despite several delays and controversies surrounding the movie, the film saw a decent opening. However, with bans in different states, it failed to attain a proper box office success. Now that the movie is available on Netflix, many are wondering whether Kangana Ranaut’s ambitious project’s OTT release has helped her recover financial losses or not.
The journey of ‘Emergency’ has not been an easy one. Kangana Ranaut had to take drastic financial measures owing to the delays in Emergency’s release. She had to put her personal properties at stake to bear the cost. “Naturally, my film was supposed to be released. I put all my personal property on it. Now that it’s not released, so anyway, that’s what properties are for – for times of crisis,” she said at a News18 event last year.
According to a Zapkey report, Kangana sold her Pali Hill bungalow in Mumbai for Rs 32 crore. This property was purchased by her in 2017 for Rs 20.7 crore and later took a Rs 27 crore loan against it. The bungalow was used as the office for her production house.
‘Emergency’ was initially set to release in 2024, on September 6. However, with the process of censor board approvals and controversies surrounding its portrayal of major and sensitive historical events, the movie got delayed. It finally made it to the theaters on January 17, 2025, but was met with an overall lukewarm response.
Irrespective of words of appreciation and high expectations, the film’s worldwide collection according to Sacnilk report was ₹ 23.75 Cr. This includes overseas collection of ₹ 2.1 Cr
and India gross collection of ₹ 21.65 Cr.
Now, according to 123Telugu.com, ‘Emergency’ was acquired by Netflix for Rs 80 crore. It is worth noting that in recent times, it is one of the highest-paid digital rights acquisitions. Reportedly, with the OTT rights sell, Kangana seems to have recovered her investment.
