Ramayana advance bookings cross Rs100 crore ahead of its worldwide release on 5 November
Trade tracker Sacnilk put advance bookings for Ramayana: Part One at Rs110.35 crore gross in India by Wednesday evening, with more than 29 lakh tickets sold before the film opens in cinemas worldwide on Thursday.
Ramayana: Part One is heading into its worldwide release with one of the biggest advance bookings ever recorded for an Indian film, after pre-sales in India crossed the Rs100 crore mark on Wednesday evening.
According to trade tracker Sacnilk, as reported on Wednesday, the film had grossed Rs110.35 crore in advance bookings including block seats, or Rs88.79 crore without them, from more than 29 lakh tickets sold by 6pm on 4 November. Worldwide advance bookings had earlier been put at Rs135 crore, with trade watchers expecting the total to approach Rs150 crore before the first shows.
The film, directed by Nitesh Tiwari and titled Ramayana: Rise of a Legend in some markets, opens in cinemas worldwide on Thursday, 5 November, coinciding with Diwali. It will be released in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English.
Ranbir Kapoor plays Lord Ram, Sai Pallavi plays Sita and Yash plays Ravana, with Sunny Deol as Hanuman and Ravi Dubey as Lakshman. The music has been composed by A. R. Rahman together with Hans Zimmer, a pairing that has drawn attention well beyond India.
The film has been granted a U certificate, making it suitable for audiences of all ages, with no cuts, and runs for three hours and 15 minutes. It was shot entirely using IMAX cameras, a choice the makers have promoted heavily in the run-up to release.
The scale of the production has been part of the story in itself. Reports have put the combined budget for both planned parts at Rs4,000 crore, with Oscar-winning visual effects studio DNEG, known for its work on Dune and The Odyssey, handling the film's effects.
The sequel has already made news of its own. Producer Namit Malhotra has confirmed that Ramayana Part Two has been postponed, with reports now placing it in 2028 rather than the Diwali 2027 slot originally planned, although no exact date has been announced.
Reactions to the film have not been uniformly celebratory. Actor Sunil Lahri, best known for playing Lakshman in Ramanand Sagar's classic television Ramayan, praised Tiwari and the cast but said some of the songs he had heard did not meet his expectations, arguing that the music should better reflect the regional character of places such as Ayodhya and Mithila.
Audiences will also see the trailer for Eetha, the Vithabai Narayangaonkar biopic starring Shraddha Kapoor and Randeep Hooda and directed by Laxman Utekar, attached to Ramayana screenings ahead of that film's release on 4 December.
Attention now turns to Thursday's opening-day collections, which trade trackers expect to cross Rs100 crore in India alone. A strong Diwali holiday run could set the tone not just for this instalment, but for the delayed second part that is meant to complete the story.
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