Ranbir Kapoor and Yash’s Ramayana is just days away from reaching theatres, and the film’s advance booking has been keeping fans busy. While the film has received a strong response overseas, its release
in India faced a few hurdles. Several theatres had not opened bookings because of a disagreement between the distributors and exhibitors. However, things have now started moving ahead, giving the film a much-needed boost before its release.
The Nitesh Tiwari directorial had its world premiere in Los Angeles earlier this week. The premiere helped increase advance bookings in the US. In India, the film’s bookings were slower as many theatres were waiting for the dispute to be settled.
Advance booking for Ramayana began on Dussehra, 15 days before its worldwide release. However, not all theatres had opened their shows. While Hindi bookings were available at several places, many single-screen theatres and smaller centres were still waiting to open bookings. The delay was caused by a disagreement between the distributors and exhibitors over how the box office collections would be shared.
Dharma Productions, which is distributing the film in India, had asked for a higher share of the theatrical revenue, citing the film’s high production costs. The distributors reportedly offered two options. The first was a 55% share for the distributor during the first 11 days. The second was a three-week arrangement, with the distributor getting 60% in the first week, 50% in the second week and 40% in the third week.
The exhibitors were not happy with the proposed terms. They said they also had expenses to manage and did not want to give up a bigger share of their earnings. They were also worried that agreeing to the terms could lead other big films to ask for similar deals. The disagreement continued for over a week. According to Sacnilk, the deadlock was finally resolved on Friday. However, neither side shared the exact terms of the agreement.
By Saturday, the film’s screen count in India had increased to nearly 2,500. As of the afternoon of October 31, Ramayana had collected ₹16.5 crore in advance bookings in India. More than three lakh tickets had been sold.
The Kannada version, which earlier had only a few shows, was now playing across 150 screens. It contributed 13% of the film’s total domestic advance-booking collections. Bookings for the Telugu and Tamil versions are also opening up gradually. These shows are expected to be fully available by Monday.
Ramayana will have paid previews in North America on the evening of November 4, a day before its worldwide release. The film saw a 27% jump in collections during the 24 hours after its world premiere in Los Angeles. By Friday, its overseas advance bookings had reached $2.5 million. More than $1 million came from the US paid previews alone.
With these collections, Ramayana’s worldwide advance-booking gross has crossed ₹40 crore, five days before its release.
Ramayana is being made as a two-part film based on the epic. It is produced by Namit Malhotra’s Prime Focus Studios, along with DNEG and Yash’s Monster Mind Creations. 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 will release worldwide on November 5, 2026. The second part is scheduled to arrive during Diwali 2027.
