Ramayana on the Eve of Release: Rs 111 Crore in Presales and a Rs 160 Crore Day-One Forecast

One sleep before release, Ramayana: Part 1 has already made box-office history. Trade estimates published on Wednesday put worldwide presales at about Rs 111 crore at the end of business on Tuesday, split almost evenly between India, at roughly Rs 57 crore gross, and overseas markets, at about USD 5.70 million. Pinkvilla expects the final day of advance booking to drive the worldwide presale figure toward Rs 150 crore. The United States leads overseas with USD 3.20 million banked for the opening weekend — the second-best Bollywood presale ever there, behind only Dhurandhar: The Revenge and more than double the comparable figures for Jawan and Pathaan.

The headline forecast is bolder still: a Rs 160 crore worldwide opening day, reported by The Indian Express from Sacnilk tracking — ahead of the roughly Rs 120 crore global openings of Pathaan and Jawan, but behind Dhurandhar 2’s Rs 200 crore. Opening-day advance sales in India alone stand at Rs 39.40 crore gross from 10.14 lakh tickets across 23,699 shows, with Hindi contributing about 82% of all advance revenue. Premium formats are punching far above their weight: IMAX 3D, 4DX and Dolby Cinema account for more than 19% of advance value from just 2% of shows. It has also set the biggest pre-Diwali advance record in PVR INOX history, with more than Rs 25 crore from that chain alone.

Readers should treat the competing totals with care, because the trackers are not counting the same thing. Sacnilk’s India advance figure of Rs 96.75 crore includes blocked exhibitor seats; strip those out and it falls to Rs 77.44 crore. Pinkvilla warns that scraped booking-site totals, which price every ticket at face value, overstate collections, since many tickets move on passes at lower average prices. The honest reading is therefore a range, not a single number — but every count points the same way: this is the biggest pre-Diwali advance run Indian cinema has seen.

The more interesting argument is not about Thursday at all, but about Monday. Exhibitors interviewed by Forbes India are split on the pre-Diwali timing. One camp argues the festival is a gift: a film about Lord Ram landing just before Diwali, with the day after the festival traditionally among the biggest box-office days of the year, and one exhibitor predicting roughly Rs 100 crore from India alone on day one. The other camp warns families stay home for the festival itself — advance sales for Sunday, November 8 are the softest of the extended weekend at Rs 13.23 crore — and that the film will only find its real pace after Monday, November 9, when word of mouth takes over. BookMyShow says nearly a million tickets have moved on its platform, with demand accelerating into release.

What is at stake goes beyond one weekend. The two-part saga carries an estimated combined budget of about Rs 4,000 crore, a sum no Hindi film has ever recovered worldwide, and the second chapter is already dated for Diwali 2027 — so a weak reception for Part 1 would cast a long shadow. The film opens on more than 50,000 screens across over 100 countries, and its US ticket count of over 51,000 trails only Dhurandhar 2, with a projected USD 13–14 million weekend. What to watch: whether the final-day surge carries worldwide presales toward Rs 150 crore, how Thursday’s opening compares with the Rs 160 crore forecast, and — most decisively — whether Monday’s post-Diwali numbers confirm a run or expose a front-loaded one. For more star stories and bios, browse our Did You Know collection.