Ranbir Kapoor's Ramayana passes $1 million in North American premiere pre-sales

Top photo: Sai Pallavi, who plays Sita in Ramayana: Part One, at a special launch event for the film on September 26, 2026. Photo by Bollywood Hungama, cropped, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Tickets for the Wednesday premiere shows of Ramayana: Part One in the United States and Canada had sold about $1.07 million by Saturday, Sacnilk reported. The film opens in India on Thursday. The US share alone was $944,863, from 43,666 tickets across 860 locations.

On Thursday Sacnilk described $1 million as the North American premiere benchmark set by Animal. That 2023 hit also starred Ranbir Kapoor. Kapoor plays Rama in Nitesh Tiwari's new film, with Sai Pallavi as Sita and the Kannada star Yash as Ravana, according to Sacnilk's film page. Sunny Deol is Hanuman.

The release lands on November 5, three days before Diwali, with Sony Pictures distributing overseas. Namit Malhotra's Prime Focus Studios produced it with Yash's Monster Mind Creations, Sacnilk lists. A.R. Rahman wrote the songs and Hans Zimmer the score. It also opens in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil.

Sacnilk put overseas pre-sales across all dates at about $3.5 million on Saturday. Middle East bookings had not yet opened. Pinkvilla's breakdown of opening-weekend sales as of Thursday put the US at $1.8 million and Canada at $350,000. Australia had $260,000, Britain $165,000 and Germany $110,000.

Australia and Canada are running second only to Dhurandhar: The Revenge among Hindi films, Pinkvilla's Jatinder Singh wrote. In the US the film trails that spy sequel by 15 to 20 percent. It leads Dhurandhar in California and Illinois and trails it in Texas and New Jersey. Pinkvilla called the film "poised for an opening weekend of USD 20 million-plus" overseas.

In India the counts climb by the hour. Sacnilk's live tracker showed ₹24.24 crore gross in advance sales for all show dates at midnight India time on Saturday night. That includes blocked seats. Without them the figure was ₹18.37 crore, from 3.90 lakh tickets.

Koimoi's Trisha Gaur counted opening-day sales alone at ₹16.80 crore net, without blocked seats, by Saturday afternoon India time. That already beats the ₹15.73 crore opening of Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar. On Koimoi's list it ranks sixth among Kapoor's opening days. Animal leads at ₹63.8 crore.

Hindi shows accounted for 82 percent of the Indian advance gross at that hour, Sacnilk reported. The Kannada version took 13 percent. Karnataka, at ₹4.55 crore, ran close behind Maharashtra at ₹4.82 crore on about a third as many shows. Bengaluru screens were 36 percent full.

Mumbai's were 13 percent full. Hyderabad was busier than either, at 52 percent across 267 shows. By Sacnilk's count IMAX 3D shows were 63 percent sold, and 3D formats of every kind drew most of the money. The film runs three hours and 15 minutes.

Sanjeev Kumar Bijli said on October 8 that the film "has all the ingredients needed to become a massive blockbuster," in an interview with Bollywood Hungama. Bijli is executive director of PVR INOX. Advance bookings across his screens had passed 2.5 lakh tickets by October 30, News24 reported, citing Bijli.

At the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, Tiwari, Kapoor, Yash and Sai Pallavi joined Malhotra on the stage of the 945-seat David Geffen Theater. The makers said the screening was oversubscribed. Malhotra called the night "my Oscar moment," Bollywood Hungama reported on October 28. "I set foot in LA in 2007 and haven't looked back since."

US premiere sales jumped 27 percent in one day as reactions to that October 27 screening spread, Sacnilk's Christa Lincy wrote on Thursday. They went from $631,000 to $800,000. Sacnilk named no viewer whose reaction drove the rise.

The cast carries a link to an older telling. Arun Govil, cast here as King Dasharatha, played Ram in Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan, which began on DD National on January 25, 1987. It ran 78 episodes. When Doordarshan re-aired it during the 2020 lockdown, the broadcaster said 77 million people watched in one day.

None of these figures come from the producers or from Sony. Trackers take snapshots at different hours and treat blocked seats differently, so their counts disagree. Sacnilk said its US premiere numbers did not specify whether blocked seats were included. It was not clear when Middle East sales would open.

The second film is slated for Diwali 2027, according to Sacnilk. North American premiere shows begin on Wednesday, November 4.