Ramayana, Toxic, Alpha and more: Indian cinema's global dreams and real challenges

Move over pan-India. After Dhurandhar, RRR and Dangal, a new lot of Indian films are now thinking pan-world. Mega projects such as Ramayana, Toxic, Vishwambhara, NTR Neel, Vishwambhara, Karuppu from the South, and Love and War, Alpha and Maatrubhumi in Bollywood, among many more, are lined to show the world what Indian cinema in 2026 is capable of.

The catch is. The going is not always as smooth as you’d want it to be.

Every few months, Indian cinema pulls off the same trick. A mega film is announced, the posters drop, a teaser lands, and long before the output is locked, ticket sales begin. Those in the loop, however, lean in with a sense of inevitability about what is coming next. For a brief moment, everything feels aligned: the scale, the anticipation, the conversation.

Then comes the update. The film is postponed, in the interest of delivering the best possible quality.

Cast your mind back over the last few years and think of the films that dominated conversations and ticket counters long before they reached theatres: Kalki 2898 AD, Pushpa 2, War 2, The Raja Saab, Salaar, RRR, Dhurandhar, Animal. These films come from different industries, feature different stars, and have delivered very different box office outcomes – some breaking records, some losing momentum and some dividing audiences. What connects them is not the result, but the pattern that precedes it: delays and postponements.

Now look at many of the big films currently building towards release across industries: Peddi, Toxic, Alpha, Love and War, Vishwambhara, NTR Neel. They, too seem to be following a similar trajectory. In several cases, even when these films do arrive, they carry the quiet signs of having been completed under pressure.

Mega projects, mega issues

These are not small films navigating routine challenges. These are projects designed for wider, in most cases global, reach and mounted with significant budgets and expectations. Steven Spielberg is engaging with Indian filmmakers; James Cameron is paying attention; Indian actors are increasingly visible on global platforms; and projects like Ramayana are being mounted on budgets comparable to international productions. Previews of films like Toxic are showcased at events like CinemaCon, the world’s largest gathering for the motion picture exhibition industry.

By every outward measure, Indian cinema is expanding its reach and ambition, and yet internally the industry continues to struggle with issues that feel far more fundamental than scale. What should have improved with access to better resources, larger markets, and more advanced technology has, in many ways, become more strained instead. That shift is not incidental. It is a pattern and, more importantly, it is a signal. Indian cinema is not struggling because its ambitions are too big.

It is struggling because the systems required to support those ambitions have not kept pace.

The domino no one talks about

When a big film gets delayed, driven by aspirations beyond pan-India success, the audiences react. Then, once the film eventually releases, the conversation moves on. What happens in between is often not discussed.

A major postponement rarely affects just one film; it reshapes the calendar around it. When Pushpa 2 moved out of its August 2024 slot due to production delays, Khel Khel Mein, Vedaa and Lucky Baskhar moved into that space, not because it was the ideal window for them, but because a gap had opened up.

Chhaava shifted from December 2024 to February 2025 to avoid competing with Pushpa 2. Vishwambhara moved away from Sankranti 2025 after Game Changer occupied the December window. Kanguva stepped back from October 2024 once Rajinikanth’s Vettaiyan locked the same date. Dacoit moved out of the March 2026 release window when securing screens against the Dhurandhar 2 wave became difficult.

When we asked trade analyst Ramesh Bala about this ripple effect, he said: “A six-month delay raises interest and holding costs for producers, locks distributor capital, and leaves exhibitors with lost peak-window revenue and weaker replacements, disrupting cash flow across the chain.”

What emerges is a chain reaction that is rarely acknowledged. The big film moves, the mid-scale film loses its slot, and the smaller film is pushed into a window it was never built for. While no single announcement captures this shift, it plays out consistently across the industry.

Impact in other forms

Thalapathy Vijay’s Jana Nayagan was postponed just two days before release. The reason may have been beyond the makers’ control, but it still serves as a clear example of the kind of damage these disruptions can cause. The reported financial loss was close to Rs 50 crore, but the larger loss is harder to quantify. It is the drop in excitement, the erosion of trust, and the weakening of that sense of occasion that a major theatrical release is meant to carry, none of which appears on a balance sheet. The situation was further complicated when the film was leaked, adding another layer to the fallout.

A different kind of disruption played out during The Raja Saab previews in Hyderabad. Prabhas fans turned up in large numbers expecting early screenings, only to be met with confusion. Shows were delayed without clear communication, theatre staff struggled to provide answers, and the uncertainty quickly escalated. At Vimal Theatre, the situation went further, with fans entering the hall during a media screening and demanding that the film be played. The visuals that circulated online did not capture celebration or anticipation, but disorder.

Then there is Dhurandhar 2, which did make it to theatres on schedule, but not without visible issues. The premiere itself was delayed, and once the film began, several viewers pointed to sound inconsistencies and editing problems, particularly in the second half. In the momentum of a large release, such issues can be overlooked in the moment, but they rarely disappear. They remain attached to the film, shaping how it is remembered, a quiet reminder that meeting a release date is not the same as being ready for it.

The impact points might be different, but this trend clearly points to several systemic issues that Indian cinema is struggling with.

The scale is real, the system is not there yet

At the centre of most of these delays sits one consistent factor: visual effects, not just in terms of volume, but in how that work is planned and executed.

Prabhas’ Adipurush was pushed from January to June 2023 after its teaser faced backlash over its visuals, with reworking reportedly costing between Rs 80 and Rs 100 crore. Chiranjeevi’s Vishwambhara, initially planned for Sankranti 2025, is now looking at Summer 2026 after the makers chose to redo many VFX shots. Kalki 2898 AD moved across multiple release plans before arriving in June 2024, with director Nag Ashwin acknowledging unfinished production work and heavy VFX demands as key reasons. Even 2.0 faced a year-long delay when a foreign VFX vendor failed to deliver over 1,000 shots, forcing the work to be redistributed across multiple studios.

These are not isolated delays. They are systems revealing their limits under pressure. When we asked Ramesh Bala about this, he said: “Indian cinema’s ambition has outpaced its ecosystem. While capability has improved, the scale of films shows that VFX, post-production and crew capacity are still stretched. In many ways, the industry is building aircraft before fully having the runway.”

He further added: “Compared to Hollywood, Indian pre-production is still shorter and less structured. Even on big films, planning often continues during shooting, with scripts and VFX workflows not always fully locked, leading to changes and delays.”

And crucially: “There is a clear VFX bottleneck. Indian productions are competing for a limited pool of top-tier studios and skilled artists. With multiple big films in parallel, resources get stretched and timelines overlap.”

Producer TG Vishwa Prasad, in an interview with NDTV while speaking about The Raja Saab, offered a ground-level example of how this plays out: “We were supposed to release the film in April 2025, but the supervisor didn’t do any of the work until October 2024. He was busy with other projects like Pushpa 2.”

Planning, or the lack of it

Actor Adivi Sesh, whose film Dacoit was affected by these shifts, offered a grounded perspective when we asked him about delays: “Films have always faced delays. Chaos has always existed because you’re going against nature to create something that isn’t there.”

That much is true. Delays are not new to filmmaking. What has changed is everything around them. “What is different now is that people have constant information. Earlier, if you didn’t like a song, you could rework it and no one knew. Now, people assume there’s trouble.” But the more revealing insight lies in economics: “What used to cost Rs 10 now costs Rs 25. Audiences have come back, but films cost twice as much to make. There’s a clear discrepancy.”

That discrepancy has consequences, because it reduces the margin for error while the scale of filmmaking continues to expand.

Producer Dil Raju, speaking in an interview about Game Changer, reflected on this lack of control with unusual candour: “When there is a big director working on a film, we can’t interfere. I should have put my points in the contract, which I didn’t. That is my mistake.”

He added: “Somewhere my sixth sense was telling me. The budget went very high, recovery avenues are not visible. A four-and-a-half-hour output, that’s a production failure.”

These are not isolated admissions, they point towards a process that remains fluid where it needs to be structured.

When OTT platforms start shaping timelines

Production overruns are only one side of the story. The other lies in how release timelines are being set. Producer Naga Vamsi, in an interview with TV5, said: “OTT platforms are deciding the final release dates. They are becoming the kings of the industry.”

Producer Suniel Narang, speaking to Gulte Pro, revealed that a major streaming platform had threatened a Rs 10 crore penalty if a film was delayed by just two weeks, a clause that leaves little room for flexibility once commitments are made.

The result is a calendar built on agreements rather than readiness. Release dates are often locked early, financial deals are structured around them, and when production timelines shift, the system has to adjust. Alpha moved more than once, first due to VFX requirements and then to avoid a clash. Love and War shifted due to both scale and release strategy, and Yash's Toxic cited international market conditions.

These are not films choosing when they are ready to release; they are films adapting to pressures that extend beyond the production itself.

Where this leaves things

When we asked Taran Adarsh about the growing pattern of postponements, he offered a counterpoint: “It’s their money and their vision. If they choose to delay for quality, that’s their call. So what’s the big problem?” It is a valid argument, but it assumes that delays consistently result in better films.

That is not always the case. Dhurandhar 2 met its release date but carried noticeable sound and editing issues, while Pushpa 2 wrapped key portions just days before release, with post-production running alongside filming. These are not signs of a system working smoothly; they are signs of a system operating under pressure.

Ramesh Bala’s suggestion, when we asked him about a possible fix, is straightforward: “Lock release dates only after a substantial portion of post-production, especially VFX, is complete. This would align production with reality and reduce cascading delays.”

The truth we are avoiding

Indian cinema is not failing. The films are getting bigger, the audience is expanding globally, and the ambition is very real. But ambition and infrastructure are not the same thing, and right now the gap between the two is becoming harder to ignore.

Until the system evolves to match the scale it is chasing, delays will continue to surface, not as unexpected disruptions, but as predictable outcomes of how the industry currently operates.