Ramayana: Part One crosses ₹50 crore in India advance bookings
Trade tracker Sacnilk put pre-sales for Ranbir Kapoor's two-part epic at ₹54 crore gross on Monday afternoon, three days before release, though counts vary between trackers.
The Global Sun Desk ·
Ramayana: Part One, the Hindi-led epic starring Ranbir Kapoor, has passed ₹50 crore in advance bookings in India, three days before its worldwide release on Thursday, 5 November. Trade tracker Sacnilk reported at 1.39 pm on Monday that the total had crossed that mark. Its tracker page, updated at 3.20 pm with data as of 2.48 pm, showed ₹54 crore gross across four show dates, or ₹43.46 crore if seats blocked by cinemas are left out.
The tracker counted 12.84 lakh tickets for 39,650 shows, held in 1,768 cinemas across 560 cities, with overall occupancy of 15 per cent. Thursday, 5 November, makes up 49 per cent of the total at ₹26.50 crore, from 6.27 lakh tickets. Friday, 6 November, adds ₹13.62 crore and Saturday, 7 November, ₹13.88 crore. The fourth date, a Wednesday 4 November premiere slot, is listed with one show and no sales. Blocked seats are held by exhibitors and are not confirmed audience purchases, Sacnilk has noted.
Trackers tell different stories
Advance booking opened on Dussehra, 20 October. For about ten days, only part of the market was selling tickets because makers and exhibitors were in a deadlock over revenue sharing, Hindustan Times reported. It said the dispute ended on Friday, 30 October, and the number of screens listed rose to 3,500 by Monday morning, 1,000 of them added in two days.
The counts differ. Hindustan Times put India pre-sales at about ₹37 crore on Monday morning, including ₹22 crore for opening day, and said the film was ahead of Animal and KGF: Chapter 2 at the same stage, though behind Dhurandhar 2, RRR and Pushpa 2. The Indian Express, citing Sacnilk's 11 am figures, took a more cautious view. It said opening-day pre-sales of ₹25.77 crore trailed the ₹73.43 crore that Yash's Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups had logged for its first day.
Languages, premium screens and overseas sales
On Sacnilk's tracker, Hindi accounts for about 84 per cent of the gross, Kannada for 9 per cent (₹4.70 crore) and Telugu for 6 per cent (₹3.17 crore). Premium formats such as IMAX, 4DX and Dolby hold 21 per cent of the gross from 2 per cent of shows. Business Today, citing Sacnilk on 26 October, had put IMAX alone at nearly 25 per cent of advance collections from 3.8 per cent of screenings.
Overseas, Sacnilk reported on 31 October that advance sales were about $3.5 million across all available dates, with North American premiere pre-sales above $1 million. Hindustan Times put overseas advance bookings at $3.9 million on Monday morning, including more than $1.5 million for the US previews. The Indian Express converted Sacnilk's $3.5 million to ₹33.20 crore and arrived at ₹80.8 crore worldwide.
About the film
Nitesh Tiwari directs. Kapoor plays Rama, Sai Pallavi is Sita, Yash is Ravana, Ravie Dubey is Lakshmana and Sunny Deol is Hanuman. A. R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer composed the music. It is the first part of a two-part project, reported to be mounted on a budget of ₹4,000 crore, and it opens across India in five languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Sacnilk has reported that it has a U certificate and runs for 3 hours 15 minutes.
In a report on 23 October, Sacnilk said trade circles were discussing an opening of about ₹70 crore net in India, which it called an ambitious target. It added that there was room for more screenings as exhibitors finalised their schedules.