Ranabaali Box Office: Vijay Deverakonda’s Period Epic Faces Slow Advance Bookings as Jailer 2 Dominates Screens

Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna’s period epic Ranabaali has arrived in theatres today, October 16 — but the film’s advance bookings suggest it faces an uphill battle at the box office, with Rajinikanth’s Jailer 2 dominating screens and audience attention just a day into its own run.

Advance bookings for Ranabaali in India opened only on Wednesday, two days ahead of release. According to trade trackers, the film earned approximately Rs 2 crore on its first day of advance sales, with more than 145,000 tickets sold across over 1,600 shows. At that pace, the film may struggle to enter the top three opening-day collections of Vijay Deverakonda’s career — a list currently led by Kingdom (Rs 17 crore nett in India), followed by Liger (Rs 15.95 crore) and Kushi (Rs 15.25 crore).

The overseas picture tells a similar story. Advance sales in North America crossed the $200,000 mark including premieres, with total advance sales for premieres and Day 1 reaching around $270,000 and the opening weekend at roughly $310,000. Those figures trail the premiere pre-sales of Vijay’s previous release Kingdom, which had registered $439,200 from over 23,000 tickets across 798 shows — though Kingdom eventually tanked at the box office, so advances are only part of the story. Notably, Ranabaali did surpass the Telugu version of Jailer 2‘s US advance sales, which wrapped at around $121,000.

Industry analysts point to one overwhelming factor behind the soft pre-sales: the Jailer 2 juggernaut. Rajinikanth’s sequel, which released on October 15, opened to an estimated Rs 125.25 crore gross worldwide on Day 1 and has dominated both Indian and overseas markets. The Telugu version of Jailer 2 alone is estimated at around Rs 15 crore gross on Day 1, directly competing for the same Telugu-speaking audience that Ranabaali needs.

For Vijay Deverakonda, the stakes are high. The actor has had a challenging run at the box office in the post-pandemic era, and Ranabaali — directed by Rahul Sankrityan as an alternate-history epic set against the 19th-century famine in southern India under British rule — is being positioned as a potential comeback. The film also reunites him with Rashmika Mandanna after Dear Comrade (2019).

With pre-sales underwhelming, the film will now depend heavily on word of mouth and critical reviews to build momentum through the weekend. More shows are expected to be added today, and the Dasara holiday period offers a window — but the Jailer 2 shadow over the Telugu market means Ranabaali needs glowing audience verdicts to turn its fortunes around.

Source: Koimoi, Zoom TV (all figures are trade estimates).