Ramayana Day 1 Box Office: Fans Turn Theatres Into Temples as Epic Opens to Packed Houses

Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Part 1 opened in cinemas across India and the world on Thursday, November 5, and the first hours looked less like a film release and more like a festival. Fans turned theatres into temples, offering prayers before life-size cutouts of Ranbir Kapoor in character as Lord Ram — at the R Mandir Multiplex in Deesa, Gujarat, moviegoers performed traditional prayers directly in front of the cutouts — while morning shows opened to packed houses across single screens and multiplexes alike.

The scale of the opening was set long before the first show. According to Sacnilk’s final advance-booking report, Ramayana crossed Rs 130.12 crore gross in India through advance sales, with 36.37 lakh tickets sold. Excluding seats blocked by cinemas, the figure stands at Rs 105.12 crore from 29.59 lakh tickets. For Thursday alone, advance bookings were worth Rs 50.08 crore including blocked seats — Rs 42.96 crore without them, from 12.14 lakh tickets. Early live tracking put the film at around Rs 14 crore from theatres so far on Thursday morning, and trade analysts projected first-day net collections in India of Rs 90–100 crore, with worldwide opening-day estimates of Rs 100–150 crore. All figures are trade estimates.

The first reviews, meanwhile, have landed mixed to positive. Critics have generally commended the film’s technical craft, especially the visual effects, and the performances of its leads, and Bollywood Bubble called the film “SPECTACULAR” in its review. Karan Johar praised Ranbir Kapoor’s portrayal of Lord Rama and Yash’s appearance as Ravana after watching the film, Vijay Deverakonda said he believes it will be “another giant leap for Indian cinema”, and Rishab Shetty called it a proud moment for Indian cinema. The film stars Ranbir Kapoor as Ram, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Yash as Ravana, with Sunny Deol as Hanuman and Ravi Dubey as Lakshman, and music by A. R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer. It has released in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, and carries a reported budget of Rs 4,000 crore across its two parts. Read our North America pre-sales report here: https://filmverse.in/ramayana-north-america-box-office-usa-3-2-million-weekend-presales/

Here is the Filmverse take: the advance bookings measured intent, and the temple-like scenes outside theatres show that intent was devotional as much as commercial — but intent is not a review, and the first-day number will be decided by whether the mixed-to-positive word of mouth holds through the evening shows. What Ramayana has already proved is that an Indian epic can open like an event film anywhere in the world; what it still has to prove, over the next three days, is that the spectacle sustains a second weekend. If the evening occupancy matches the morning fervour, the Rs 100 crore opening-day mark is well within reach.

Sources: Sacnilk, Cinema Express, The Times of Bengal, Bollywood Bubble — all box-office figures are trade estimates.