India's richest film family has no superstars, still a ₹10000 crore net worth; richer than Kapoors, Khans, Konidelas

The richest film family in India has no superstars, but is still richer than the Khans and the Kapoors of Bollywood.

It has been less than three decades since Hindi cinema earned the tag 'industry'. Earlier called the Hindi filmdom, Bollywood has grown exponentially in size and scale, producing films worth hundreds of crores each month. This has led to some of the biggest stars and producers becoming billionaires themselves. Over the years, as sons and grandsons have followed in their seniors' footsteps, wealthy film families have developed, from the Kapoors to the Chopras. Even down south, the Konidelas and the Akkinenis have extended their monopolies. Yet, none of them are as rich as this one film family, which started as fruit vendors and now lord over Bollywood.

India's richest film family has no acting superstar and yet boasts of a net worth of ₹10000 crore.

India's richest film family

The Kumars of T-Series are the richest family in Indian cinema, according to the Hurun Rich List. The latest edition of the India list from Hurun, released last year, put the family's net worth at $1.2 billion (over ₹10,000 crore). This means that the Kumars are now the richest family in Bollywood, a tag once held by the Kapoors and, eventually, the Chopras.

The Kumar family, including Bhushan, Kishan, Khushali, Tulsi, and Divya, is collectively worth ₹10,000 crore.

The Chopra family - owners of Yash Raj Films and BR Films - have a combined reported net worth of over ₹8000 crore, putting them in the second place after the Kumars. Shah Rukh Khan's family has a net worth of ₹7800 crore according to Forbes. The Kapoors, once the richest film family in India, are way below in the list with a combined net worth of just over ₹2000 crore.

South India's wealthiest film families

Some of the richest film families in India exist in the Telugu film industry, where some big clans operate, including the Mega Family (the Konidea-Allu family that includes Chiranjeevi, Pawan Kalyan, Ram Charan, and Allu Arjun), and the Akkineni-Daggubati family (includes Nagrjuna, Naga Chaitanya, Venkatesh, and Rana Daggubati). The Mega Family has an estimated net worth of ₹4000 crore, courtesy of their production companies and successful films, but the Akkineni-Daggubati family is ahead with an estimated combined net worth of over ₹5000 crore, largely due to Nagarjuna's massive wealth.

How the Kumars became billionaires

Yet, these two families are much behind what Bhushan Kumar and his family have managed, building an empire worth ₹10,000 crore. And it has done so without any acting superstar in the midst. Bhushan Kumar runs T-Series with his uncle and co-chairman Kishan Kumar, an actor-turned-producer. Other members of the family in Bollywood include actor-director Divya Khossla (Bhushan's wife), actor Khushali Kumar (Bhushan's sister), and singer Tulsi Kumar (Bhushan's younger sister).

A snippet from an HT report from 1995 traces the humble beginnings of T-Series.

The Kumar family draws the bulk of their wealth from T-Series, the media conglomerate that began as a music label and is now one of India's biggest film production companies. The company also owns several other subsidiaries and an acting school in Noida.

Just one generation ago, their patriarch Gulshan Kumar (Bhushan's father and Kishan's brother) was a fruit vendor in Delhi. His career path changed after he and his father acquired a shop selling music cassettes in the 70s. From there, he graduated to start his own record label, Super Cassettes, which developed into T-Series.