Ticket sales for Nitesh Tiwari’s ambitious Ramayana adaptation began on Dussehra, 15 days before the film’s release in theatres ahead of Diwali. Giving the film such a long advance booking window seems to be the makers’ strategy to increase the buzz around it. And early signs indicate that the strategy seems to be working. Ramayana Part One is showing breakneck pre-sales, crossing one lakh tickets with 13 days to go before release.
In doing so, it has also outpaced the previous big-scale Ramayana adaptation, Adipurush, which had a grand opening before it crash-landed due to extremely negative word of mouth.
Ramayana vs Adipurush advance bookings
Advance bookings for Adipurush began five days before its release, in line with how most big Indian films do so. The pre-sales Hindi version opened first, followed by the Telugu version a day later. In the first 24 hours, Adipurush sold around 36K tickets for its Hindi version, bringing in ₹1.40 crore in pre-sales. This was a healthy number. As the Telugu advance booking opened the following day, the pre-sales soared.
Ramayana has followed a similar pattern. The first day saw ticket sales only for the Hindi version, as the Kannada version opened with just 60 shows across India. Despite that, Ramayana sold over 65K tickets, minting ₹3.13 crore in gross on its opening day. This figure is 123% higher than what Adipurush managed in the same time period. The Prabhas-starrer salvaged its pre-sales with the Telugu advance bookings in the days to come, closing its final figure at a respectable ₹26 crore, with over a million tickets sold.
How Ramayana pre-sales are faring
Ramayana has already reached the ₹6.25 crore mark. The Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil versions have barely begun, contributing just ₹50 lakh to this figure. The Hindi version of Ramayana is already showing occupancy of 15-20% in most major cities, with over 900 screens open. In comparison, the Kannada version has opened in fewer than 100 screens so far and is still doing well, with some centres already reporting up to 72% occupancy for the morning shows. Yash’s star power will help the film soar to greater heights once advance bookings for Kannada and Telugu open fully later this month.
All about Ramayana
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, 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.