Thirteen days before Ramayana: Part One opens on November 5, advance booking has reached ₹8.27 crore gross including block seats. The confirmed number is lower—₹6.25 crore excluding them—but its direction matters more. Nitesh Tiwari’s film, starring Ranbir Kapoor as Ram, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Yash as Ravana, carries a U certificate and a runtime of 3 hours 15 minutes.
The film has booked around 1.47 lakh tickets across 3,964 shows in 121 cities so far, led by the Hindi version. It has also topped IMDb’s most anticipated Indian films list for 2026, and the second trailer’s Rama-Ravana confrontation has kept interest alive.
Blocked seats are not demand
Block seats are inventory held by exhibitors, not money from audiences. The distinction is central here because the two advance-booking lines are moving at different speeds. Since the first 24 hours of booking, gross excluding block seats has grown approximately 73%, compared with roughly 52% for the headline total. Blocked seats accounted for about 34% of the initial gross; they now represent close to 24%.
Of the ₹2.83 crore added in that period, about 93% came from bookings excluding block seats. Show count rose around 12%, while tickets including blocks rose about 58%. As a result, the average number of tickets per show climbed from 26 to 37. That suggests demand is outpacing the expansion of tracked showtimes, though it says nothing about how evenly the demand is spread.
What a pre-Diwali opening needs
No tracked show has sold out yet, so there is still inventory to fill. The comparison is useful: Dhurandhar: The Revenge eventually logged more than 9.50 lakh opening-day advance tickets across over 17,000 shows before release. Ramayana is currently at a much smaller show count, leaving room for exhibitors to add screenings once schedules are finalised. An earlier revenue-sharing disagreement between distributors and exhibitors had complicated the wider rollout.
National chains offer a sharper test. PVR INOX and Cinepolis had together sold more than 50,000 opening-day tickets by Thursday night. Premium formats have drawn strong early interest, while conventional multiplex bookings are still developing. Trade estimates treat roughly 3.5 lakh opening-day tickets across the three major chains as a solid pre-Diwali benchmark, and 5 lakh as a more ambitious target.
The ₹70 crore question
A ₹70 crore India net opening is being discussed, but it remains ambitious. November 5 is the Thursday before the main Diwali holiday period, so the film will not get the full benefit of a major festival day at open. Even a ₹60 crore start would give the film a substantial base if demand strengthens into the festive period that begins on November 9. Paid previews planned for November 4 could add momentum.
For readers tracking the release, the indicators to watch are:
- Confirmed-ticket growth excluding block seats, not the headline gross.
- The expansion of regular-screen inventory as exhibitors finalise shows.
- Whether occupancy holds as new showtimes open, especially beyond premium formats.
- The 3.5 lakh-to-5 lakh chain-ticket range as an opening-day benchmark.
The final seven days of advance sales, starting around October 29, will show whether early premium demand turns into a broad national opening.
Source: Sacnilk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
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