Ramayana Advance Booking Stalls on Dussehra Day as Distributors Demand 60% Revenue Share

The nationwide advance booking for Ramayana: Part 1 was supposed to open on the auspicious day of Dussehra. Instead, ticket counters stayed silent. Ranbir Kapoor’s mythological epic — scheduled to release worldwide on November 5 — hit a commercial roadblock on Tuesday, October 20, as distributors and exhibitors failed to agree on revenue-sharing terms, according to a Bollywood Hungama scoop.

As of 9:30 am on Tuesday, barely any cinema across the country had opened bookings for the film. The only two venues reported to have opened advance sales were INOX Korum Mall in Thane, in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, and AMB Cinemas Kapali in Bengaluru. Everywhere else, screens stayed dark while negotiations continued.

The disagreement centres on the proportion of net ticket revenue retained by distributors in the opening weeks. For big-budget films, the industry norm is a distributor share of 52.5% in week one, 45% in week two and 37.5% in week three. But the distributors handling Ramayana are reportedly demanding a 60% share in the first week, 50% in the second and 40% in the third — significantly richer terms that would shift a greater portion of theatrical earnings their way during the period when anticipated films generate their strongest business. Exhibitors, who must also account for operating costs and screen-allocation risk, have so far been reluctant to agree.

“Unless both parties arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement, the advance booking could get delayed,” a trade source told Bollywood Hungama. “Everyone is keen to release Ramayana on a grand scale, but there has to be mutual consensus when it comes to commercial terms.”

The timing stings. Sixteen days out from release, the industry believes deeply in the scale of Ramayana — the argument is only about the split. But every day of stalled advance sales on a festival window is box-office momentum the film cannot get back.

Directed by Nitesh Tiwari and produced by Namit Malhotra’s Prime Focus Studios with Yash’s Monster Mind Creations, Ramayana: Part 1 stars Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Rama, Yash as Ravana, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Sunny Deol as Hanuman, with music by Hans Zimmer and A. R. Rahman. The film will have its world premiere at the Academy Museum’s David Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles on October 27, ahead of the November 5 worldwide release in five languages, including IMAX.

Source: Bollywood Hungama