Hours remain before the film’s first screenings on Thursday morning, and pre-sales are at their peak. Advance bookings crossed the ₹ 100 crore mark on Tuesday and are now racing towards the ₹ 150-crore mark. Advance bookings for Ramayana are set to come to a close as the film enters the home stretch.
For the first 10 days after advance bookings for Ramayana opened on Dussehra, pre-sales did not gain momentum. By Wednesday afternoon, the number of screens for the film had increased to over 6000. Over a thousand of these were added in the last 24 hours. By noon on November 4, less than 24 hours before the film releases, Ramayana had grossed a staggering ₹ 78 crore in pre-sales in India. This includes an impressive ₹ 34 crore from the opening day itself. Ramayana has now sold over 20 lakh tickets in pre-sales across India. Overseas, Ramayana has reached the $6 million mark in pre-sales. This includes $1.5 million from the Wednesday paid previews in the United States, which is among the highest for an Indian film. As of noon, Ramayana has grossed ₹ 135 crore in advance bookings worldwide, with trade insiders predicting the figure to reach ₹ 150 crore by the end of the day. The first part is scheduled for worldwide release on November 5, 2026, while the second part is set for Diwali 2028.
That was largely due to a standoff between the exhibitors and the distributors over revenue sharing. Once that was resolved over the weekend, more screens opened, and advance bookings gained momentum. 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. With nearly a million tickets sold on BookMyShow ahead of the release, the film has set a new benchmark for pre-Diwali period becoming the biggest movie title on the platform. Even for a Diwali-window, the film is poised to set new box office records, looking at the advance sales trends. What stands out is not just the scale of bookings, but the acceleration in demand as release day approaches, the strength of its opening-day sales and the traction across multiple language markets. 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 films will release in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam across India.
Ashish Saksena, COO – cinemas, BookMyShow said, “Ramayana’s advance booking trajectory signals the arrival of a major theatrical event.
In fact, if the current trends hold, it may not even break into the top five biggest openings by Indian films. Despite this, Ramayana is on course for a massive start at the box office, just not as big as a film of this scale would have warranted. There was an early push, and overseas pre-sales took off immediately, but in India, ticket booking hit a roadblock. There was disagreement between the exhibitors and the film’s distributors over revenue sharing, which meant that most screens did not open up bookings till just five days ago. However, Ramayana gained momentum as release week approached. Despite Yash ’s presence, the Kannada version does not look to open at record levels. Overseas, the North American paid previews have painted an encouraging picture for the Nitesh Tiwari film.
Ramayana looks set to gross ₹ 40 crore in advance bookings for its opening day across India. The film has already beaten the marks of Bollywood blockbusters such as Pathaan ( ₹ 27.2 crore), Stree 2 ( ₹ 28.3 crore), and Animal ( ₹ 32.3 crore), as well as Adipurush ( ₹ 26 crore), the previous adaptation of the epic. It is projected to surpass Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan ( ₹ 34.5 crore) by the afternoon. The Aditya Dhar film amassed ₹ 95.6 crore before release in March. This was aided by paid previews, but even after excluding them, Dhurandhar 2’s day 1 advance booking haul of ₹ 50+ crore is beyond Ramayana’s reach. Earlier reporting noted: Ramayana box office prediction: With ₹160 crore projected start, Ranbir Kapoor-Yash film dwarfs Jawan and Animal, but no match for Dhurandhar 2, RRR It may be the biggest Indian film ever, getting the widest release in Indian cinema history, but alas, Ramayana is not on course to set the biggest opening for an Indian film. Earlier reporting noted: Advance bookings for Ramayana began globally on Dussehra, 15 days before the film’s wide release. By Wednesday morning, with less than 24 hours to go for the release, Ramayana had grossed ₹ 77 crore in pre-sales in India for its opening weekend. The opening day alone accounted for around ₹ 33 crore of this. Overseas, the film has collected $5.6 million in advance bookings, including $1.5 million for the paid previews in North America. This takes the film’s global advance booking to ₹ 125 crore. But only about ₹ 70 crore of it is for the opening day (including paid previews) Earlier reporting noted: Ramayana has collected ₹ 33 crore in gross pre-sales for its opening day in India, with a day to go before release. The film has a shot at crossing ₹ 40 crore by the end of the day. This could translate into an ₹ 80 crore net opening day for the film in India. Surprisingly, the Hindi version is looking to dominate the proceedings, contributing around ₹ 55-60 crore to the total net. The film could earn $1.6 million in paid previews and over $5 million on day 1, according to trade insiders. This would translate to a global start of ₹ 160 crore gross. Some conservative estimates put the figure closer to ₹ 150 crore, while some optimistic ones still hope the film will inch toward the ₹ 200-crore mark, even if that now looks increasingly difficult.
However, it is a long way behind Hindi cinema’s all-time record, set by Ranveer Singh’s Dhurandhar The Revenge earlier this year.
