Each year the Bollywood producers and directors look for festive dates for big move launches, the reason behind this is usually long holidays and previous success stories. This year Ramayana is releasing right before Diwali, the star studded movie tells the story of Ramayan in a different way. It has the latest VFX and the trailer looks promising. Already the movie has spent over ₹4,000 crore (approximately $500 million) in budget and the director Nitesh Tiwari’s two-part epic looks forward to recovering this money with a bumper hit at the box officer this year end.
Ramayana: Part 1 just walked straight into that supposedly unlucky week — and the advance booking numbers are making that old rule look pretty silly.
As of this morning, 4 November, trade tracker Sacnilk puts the film’s India advance booking at Rs 96.56 crore including blocked seats, or Rs 77.31 crore without them. That’s from 25.65 lakh tickets sold. Day one alone, Thursday 5 November, accounts for Rs 39.35 crore gross from 10.11 lakh tickets across 23,671 shows.
Quick note on those two numbers, because you’ll see both floating around. The higher figure includes blocked seats — seats theatres hold back for various reasons. The lower one strips those out. Either way you count it, this is not a slow start. This is a film people decided to watch weeks ago.
The PVR INOX milestone recaptures the same information in another way. On 3 November, PVR INOX’s Kamal Gianchandani tweeted that Ramayana had crossed Rs 25 crore-plus in advance ticket sales at PVR INOX alone, with two more days still to go, and was on course for the biggest pre-Diwali advance bookings in PVR INOX’s 30-plus year history. This is just one chain group, not the aforementioned all-India number. That’s the striking part.
Why is there so much hype?
Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Part 1 is the first installment in a two-part live action animation series based on Valmiki’s epic. Since the movie has big names and a bigger budget the movie is getting limelight. Filmed in IMAX, and made for everyone, it’s 195 minutes long and uncensored. Yes, to be clear that’s 195 minutes, not seconds. Shri Rama is being played by actor Ranbir Kapoor who has seen recent success in the movie Animal, Devi Sita is Sai Pallavi, Ravana is non other than the KGF movie actor Yash, Shri Hanuman is Sunny Deol, and Lakshmana is Ravi Dubey. The film is proudly produced by Namit Malhotra’s Prime Focus Studios with DNEG, Yash’s Monster Mind Creations, in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam with a fully shot English version for international release, with the second installment coming for Diwali 2027!
There’s also been a legal shield put in place before release. On 2 November, the Bombay High Court granted a dynamic interim injunction against piracy, restraining unauthorised recording, uploading, hosting and streaming, after a suit by Godpower Media Private Limited. The next hearing is on 16 December.
Now, a bit of honesty before we get carried away. Advance booking is a promise, not a result. It tells us how many people have already committed, not how the film will be received once those first shows actually play, or what word of mouth will do over the Diwali weekend. A record pre-sale can still meet a mixed response, and a slow starter can still grow. That’s the part no number can settle in advance.
But as a starting point? This is about as strong as it gets. A mythological epic, released in the week everyone said was risky, with nearly Rs 100 crore in India advance booking before a single regular show has played. The jinx, at least for now, looks broken.
Ramayana: Part 1 releases in cinemas worldwide tomorrow, Thursday 5 November 2026. Are you watching it first day, or waiting to see what the first reactions say? Tell us in the comments.