Here’s how much Amitabh Bachchan’s Kaun Banega Crorepati has paid in prize money in 25 years: ‘Couple of hundred crores’

Producer of Kaun Banega Crorepati Siddhartha Basu talks about how people were initially unsure of Slumdog Millionaire, due to stark differences between KBC and the show depicted in the movie.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | September 3, 2025 04:17 PM IST

Producer of KBC reveals the difference between KBC and Slumdog Millionaire. (Photo: Sony/IMDb)

Kaun Banega Crorepati is one of the longest-running shows on Indian television with new episodes. The new season came out last month, and host Amitabh Bachchan returns every evening as India’s favourite quiz host. With Rs 7 crore as its jackpot prize — the amount was Rs 1 crore when the show started at the turn of the century.

One of the correlations that people make with the show is the film Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle. Based on Vikas Swarup’s book ‘Q and A’, also known as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, the film depicted a darker side of the game show industry. Siddhartha Basu, who is one of the producers of KBC, sat down to have a conversation with Vikas about the show and the film and how the latter came to be.

Vikas talked about how KBC is a cultural phenomenon in India and how the show gave him the idea behind his book. He said, “My book was absolutely inspired by KBC. We all know how popular the show became in India. When Amitabh Bachchan used to come on the television at 9 pm, people would become anti-social and wouldn’t answer their doors because they were busy watching him. That was for me the inspiration to craft a story around a quiz show but with a very untypical contestant, and what I wanted to show through the novel is that the greatest teacher is life itself.”

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He added that the showrunners in the book and the film don’t actually have the best intentions and said, “The show in the book is offering Rs 100 crore as the prize money, but they don’t want to actually give that sum away. The idea is to tempt and titillate you, but nobody wins it.” Basu agreed with this fundamental difference between KBC and the show in the story and revealed that the Amitabh show has actually paid out a lot of prize money over the years, and that’s why a lot of people who were involved with the show felt a bit queasy about the way the game show was depicted in the film.

He said, “You mentioned how the book was premised around people not wanting to give the money, which is in sharp contrast to KBC, which I have been associated with for over 21 years. I know that they have given a couple of hundred crores as prize money till now. A lot of people don’t know this, but we also played a part in the making of Slumdog Millionaire. We set up the whole studio, and Danny Boyle worked there with his team. There were some things that were completely different from the book, and we weren’t exactly comfortable with some concepts. But the people who wanted us to do it were people who were producers of Who Wants to be a Billionaire, so we had to do it.”

Directed by Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire starred Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, and Saurabh Shukla. The music was composed by AR Rahman, and the film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, taking home 8, including the coveted Best Picture award. KBC is currently available to stream on SonyLiv and ColorsTV.

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