Namit Malhotra’s Ramayana is building serious pre-release demand, but the box-office question is not whether it opens well—it is whether it opens at a historic level. As of Friday at 2 PM, the Ranbir Kapoor and Yash-led epic had sold around 1.5 lakh tickets across the top national multiplex chains, PVR Inox and Cinepolis.
The current number and the gap
The advance is strong but not yet dominant. Ramayana is still trailing Ranveer Singh’s Dhurandhar 2 by a substantial margin in India. The positive signal is direction: with under a week to release, the film is expected to gain momentum as shows open across non-national chains from Friday onwards.
- 1.5 lakh tickets sold in PVR Inox and Cinepolis by Friday 2 PM.
- Rs 65 crore projected opening if the advance pace holds.
- 5 lakh national-chain pre-sales projected, which would be a top-five all-time level.
- Trailing Dhurandhar 2 at present, with three days to change the trajectory.
Why the next three days decide
The Rs 65 crore opening projection is conditional. Trade tracking suggests that number is possible for a pre-Diwali release, but the film needs a visible momentum shift over the next three days. Ramayana is tracking toward 5 lakh pre-sales in the national multiplex chains, which would place it among the top five advance bookings of all time.
For entertainment marketers and media planners, the gap between an assured start and a record start is the whole game. A debut north of Animal and Toxic is being talked about as the baseline, while the makers are aiming higher: the biggest Hindi opening of all time, ahead of Dhurandhar 2 and Pushpa 2. Non-national chain show additions will show whether demand is broad or metro-heavy.
What to watch
Ignore single-day spikes. The metric that matters is whether the 5 lakh pre-sales trajectory holds after more non-national shows open. If it holds, the Rs 65 crore figure firms up. If it stalls into the pre-Diwali window, the opening could still be large but may fall short of record territory.
For distribution and marketing teams, advance sales are the most honest real-time view of intent before reviews and word-of-mouth take over.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
