Live India Reporter

World's most profitable film: Made in Rs 6 lakh, earned Rs 800 crore; it's not Saw, Barbie, Kashmir Files, Kerala Story

In 2007, filmmaker Oren Peli wrote, shot, directed, and produced a low-budget horror film called Paranormal Activity. Following the example of the 1999 hit The Blair Witch Project, the film used a found footage format and was entirely filmed on amateur handheld cameras or CCTV. The film’s skeletal crew and cast of only four people kept the budget limited to $15,000 (Rs 6 lakh by 2007 exchange rate). After it was acquired by Paramount Pictures, the ending was changed and some post-production work was added, which took its total budget to $215,000 (Rs 90 lakh). The film was a sleeper hit, registering a monumental worldwide gross of $193 million (nearly Rs 800 crore). This gave it the highest budget-to-collection ratio in the history of cinema.