Mughal-e-Azam was a Rs 145 cr gamble made with gold, ittar pools; K Asif never made a film again | Bollywood News
K Asif’s magnum opus, Mughal-E-Azam, had everything going against it when it released back in 1960. Of course, it had the biggest stars of its time – Dilip Kumar, Madhubala and Prithviraj Kapoor – but just going by the economics of the film, no one had faith that the most expensive film of its time, made on a reported budget of Rs 1.5 crore, would ever recover its entire budget. Rs 1.5 crore of 1960 would be roughly equal to Rs 145 crore of 2026. The film had been in the making for over a decade, and when it was released, it was amid controversy – the lead stars had broken up, the director and the lead actor were no longer on talking terms, and K Asif, the man who had dreamed of the world of Mughal-E-Azam, was struggling in his personal life. Regardless, the decade that was spent in making the film, K Asif spared no expense, and backing him was the construction tycoon, Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry. K Asif famously refused to shoot a …
