Ramayana advance booking storms past ₹100 crore days before release; Ranbir Kapoor, Yash film eyeing Dhurandhar 2, RRR-level start | Bollywood
The Ramayana is now entering its home stretch in terms of advance bookings. Just two days before its grand worldwide release, the film has crossed the ₹100-crore mark in pre-sales worldwide. This is a mark very few Indian films have crossed, highlighting the anticipation and hype around the release of the Nitesh Tiwari film.
Ramayana: Part One is set to release worldwide on November 5.Ramayana advance bookings set recordsAdvance bookings for Ramayana opened on Dussehra, 15 full days before its global release. But after a strong start on day 1, the pace plateaued. This was largely because, over the next 10 days, only the Hindi version had many shows open. Most of the single-screen and smaller centres did not open till last week. This was because the film’s distributors - Dharma Productions - were in negotiations with the exhibitors for a higher revenue share. Then, last Friday, the stalemate ended, and more screens were added over the weekend.
That was reflected in the manic growth in Ramayana’s pre-sales worldwide over the last three days. By Tuesday morning, the number of screens for the film had increased to over 5000. Over 1500 of these were added in the last 24 hours alone. By the morning of November 3, two days before its release, the film had grossed ₹58 crore in pre-sales in India. This included an impressive ₹27 crore from the opening day itself. What is truly impressive about Ramayana’s advance-booking trend is that the entire weekend is seeing huge demand for tickets, not just on opening day. The second and third days have so far contributed ₹25 crore in gross pre-sales. Day 4, Sunday, has few shows open now, but is steadily catching up as well.
Ramayana has now sold almost 15 lakh tickets in pre-sales across India. The premium formats - including IMAX - are driving sales, accounting for almost one-fourth of total sales, despite holding just 4% of screens.
What has helped Ramayana’s case is the pre-sales buzz overseas. In North America, the film will have paid previews on November 4, the eve of its release. The 24 hours after its world premiere saw the film register a 27% jump in collections. By Tuesday morning, the film had earned $5 million in overseas advance bookings, including over $1.5 million for the US paid previews alone. This takes the film’s worldwide advance-booking gross to ₹105 crore two days before its release.
Crossing ₹100 crore in advance bookings is rare for an Indian film. So far, only a handful of Indian films, including Baahubali 2, RRR, Pushpa 2, and Dhurandhar 2, have managed it. As things stand, Ramayana is tracking to open as strongly as any of these films, aiming for a top-5 all-time opening day.
Produced by Namit Malhotra’s Prime Focus Studios in collaboration with DNEG and Yash’s Monster Mind Creations, Ramayana is planned as a two-part film. The film stars Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita, Yash as Ravana, Ravie Dubey as Lakshman, and Sunny Deol as Lord Hanuman. The first part is scheduled for worldwide release on November 5, 2026, while the second part is set for Diwali 2027. The films will release in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam across India.
Sony Pictures will handle global distribution, excluding India, while Dharma Productions will distribute the film in the Hindi-speaking market. The film is also planned for a worldwide IMAX release.
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More
