Ramayana’s advance booking, scheduled to open this morning on Dussehra, did not materialise across most of India. By 9:30 am on October 20, hardly any cinemas had switched on bookings for the Ranbir Kapoor, Yash and Sai Pallavi film, with a revenue-sharing standoff between distributors and exhibitors cited as a key reason.
The dispute in numbers
Revenue-sharing terms decide how a film’s box office is split once gross collections land: the distributor’s cut covers recovery, marketing and prints, while the exhibitor’s cut pays for screens, staffing and venue costs. When a title as anticipated as Ramayana pushes that split upward, the fight is over who keeps more of what the opening weekend actually earns.
For a big-ticket film, the distributor’s standard share is usually:
- 52.5% in Week 1
- 45% in Week 2
- 37.5% in Week 3
What Ramayana’s distributors are reportedly asking for is a step up: 60% in Week 1, 50% in Week 2 and 40% in Week 3. A trade source told Bollywood Hungama that this is ‘significantly higher than the usual sharing terms followed for big-budget films’. Exhibitors, worried about what the sharper first-week cut would leave them, are reluctant to sign on, and negotiations are currently underway.
The early-bird screens
As of 9:30 am, only INOX Korum Mall in Thane had opened bookings in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. AMB Cinemas Kapali in Bengaluru had also begun booking. The film is scheduled for a worldwide release on November 5, which leaves a short window to settle terms and still give marketing and trade partners a clean run at advance sales.
Why it matters
A delayed advance window is not just a logistical annoyance. Advance bookings convert awareness into pre-sales, fund exhibitor confidence in show counts and give distributors an early read on opening-day demand. Every day of delay shrinks that data set and, for a film positioned on this scale, compresses the momentum that the opening weekend monetises.
The source added, ‘Everyone is keen to release Ramayana on a grand scale, but there has to be mutual consensus when it comes to commercial terms.’
What to watch
The next signal is simple: whether more cinemas open bookings in the coming days. A fast settlement keeps the November 5 date intact in practice; a long standoff forces a scramble to build advance sales over a shorter window.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
