Mumbai: The belief that a big film cannot open just before Diwali is about to be tested. By Tuesday morning, advance bookings for Ramayana: Part One had crossed Rs 100 crore worldwide.
In India, the gross advance stood at Rs 72.91 crore including seats blocked by cinemas, or Rs 57.9 crore without them, across 59,822 shows. About 18.56 lakh tickets have been sold. A total of 107 shows are housefull, 26 of them fully sold out. Opening day, 5 November, accounts for Rs 32.37 crore of that.
The Hindi version is doing the heavy lifting with Rs 57.83 crore, about 82 per cent of the India total. Overseas markets have added more than Rs 40 crore, and North American paid previews on 4 November have sold over 51,000 tickets worth more than $1.2 million.
"The response to Ramayana has been truly exceptional, with advance bookings already crossing 4 lakh tickets across the PVR INOX circuit," said Kamal Gianchandani, chief business planning and strategy at PVR INOX. "With bookings gathering strong momentum, we expect the numbers to cross the 1 million ticket mark by Wednesday night, ahead of its release on Thursday." PVR has booked Rs 25.36 crore, INOX Rs 14.91 crore and Cinepolis Rs 5.49 crore.
Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, the film is produced by Namit Malhotra's Prime Focus Studios with DNEG and Yash's Monster Mind Creations. Ranbir Kapoor plays Ram, Sai Pallavi Sita, Yash Ravana, Ravi Dubey Laxman and Sunny Deol Hanuman. A.R. Rahman has composed the music and Hans Zimmer the score.
It releases in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam on 5 November, with Diwali on 8 November. Trade estimates put the opening day at around Rs 70 crore net, though that is a projection, not a collection.
The film's two-week IMAX exclusivity has already moved one release: Godzilla Minus Zero will now open in India on 20 November instead of this week.