Ramayana advance booking: Rs 17 crore in India, Rs 40 crore worldwide; trade eyes Rs 65 crore opening

By city, the NCR leads with Rs 2.90 crore in gross bookings, or Rs 2.34 crore excluding blocked seats, and Bengaluru is second with Rs 2.45 crore. North America accounts for USD 1.91 million, nearly 74% of the overseas pre-sales, and paid previews on 4 November are approaching USD 1 million.

The latest count

Another count, taken at 11 am on Friday, put India's advance sales at Rs 17.14 crore from 3.34 lakh tickets, and overseas sales at about USD 3 million, with North America accounting for roughly 75%. The paid previews on 4 November rose 27% in 24 hours to USD 800,000. By language, Hindi accounts for 83% of domestic pre-sales across more than 1,600 screens. Kannada has over Rs 2 crore on more than 100 screens, with up to 80% morning occupancy, Telugu nearly Rs 50 lakh on 20 screens and Tamil over Rs 4 lakh on about a dozen screens.

What the trade expects

The trade report says the film is tracking toward 5 lakh pre-sales in the national chains, which it says would place it in the top five of all time, and that more shows are expected to open in the non-national chains. The current advance cycle suggests an opening of Rs 65 crore, but the report says the figure needs a shift in momentum over the next three days before it can be stated with certainty.

Early trade estimates suggest that worldwide first-day collections could exceed Rs 147 crore. These are projections and remain uncertain. The makers want the film to take the top Hindi opening of all time, ahead of Dhurandhar 2 and Pushpa 2.

The film releases on 5 November in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, with a runtime of 195 minutes, or 3 hours 15 minutes. It is the first part of a two-part saga, and the second part is scheduled for 2028. It is produced by Prime Focus Studios and Yash's Monster Mind Creations, and Raavana is Yash's Hindi debut. Supporting cast includes Sunny Deol, Ravie Dubey, Anupam Kher, Kajal Aggarwal, Rakul Preet Singh, Vivek Oberoi, Kunal Kapoor, Arun Govil and Lara Dutta.

Nitesh Tiwari directs. Namit Malhotra produces and Yash co-produces. Ranbir Kapoor plays Lord Rama, Sai Pallavi plays Sita and Yash plays Raavana. Sony Pictures is handling the international release across five regions. Page tags in the trade report also list Sunny Deol and Ravi Dubey, and a related headline lists Rakul Preet Singh as Surpanakha, but the reports found do not state the roles of the others.

Related headlines say that the Central Board of Film Certification passed the film with a U certificate and no cuts, and one report puts the runtime at 3 hours 15 minutes. These details come from headlines, not from the full reports, so they should be checked against the film's certificate.

Advance bookings are an indicator and not a result. Blocked seats, which are seats held back and not sold, inflate gross booking totals, which is why some trackers give two figures. Opening-day collections also include walk-in sales on the day, which the pre-sale totals do not capture.

The comparison with Dhurandhar 2 shows how high the bar is. At the time of the report the film was behind it by a wide margin in India, though the report says the pace could pick up in the days before release.

The release is less than a week away, so the next few days of bookings will decide whether the opening projections hold. The reports found do not give the number of screens or the ticket prices, and they do not say how many shows are sold out.