Ramayana: Part 1 release day explained: Mumbai premiere, record advance bookings, a star cast — and Part 2 pushed to 2028

Release day at a glance: what opens on 5 November

Ramayana: Part 1, also called Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, is scheduled to release in theatres worldwide on Thursday, 5 November 2026, on the eve of the festive Diwali period. Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, it is the first instalment of a planned two-part cinematic adaptation of the Hindu epic Ramayana, produced by Namit Malhotra's Prime Focus Studios in association with Yash's Monster Mind Creations and DNEG. The timing is deliberate: a Thursday release just before Diwali gives the film an extended opening weekend, with the festival period traditionally among the strongest box-office windows in India.

The film releases in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, with a dubbed English version overseas, according to The Indian Express, while India TV lists the same five Indian languages plus English. It is also being released in premium formats including IMAX 3D, 4DX, Dolby and other large-format screens, which matters for a film whose selling point is scale: visual effects, large battle sequences and a mythological world built for the biggest screen available. The Indian Express reports that the combined budget of the two-part epic is reportedly ₹4,000 crore, with approximately ₹2,000 crore allocated to Part 1, including production, post-production, visual effects and promotional expenses — figures described as reported estimates, not confirmed by the makers in the sources reviewed.

The film has received a U certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification, making it suitable for audiences of all age groups, and its runtime is 3 hours and 15 minutes, according to CBFC certification details reported by India TV. That length makes it one of the longer mainstream releases of the year, and it frames the viewing experience as an event rather than a routine outing: audiences are being asked to commit a full evening to the first half of a story whose conclusion will not arrive until 2028. Ticket prices vary widely by city, format and showtime, from around ₹250 to over ₹3,000 in India, with premium recliner and Insignia seats in Mumbai reported at up to around ₹3,170.

The road to release day: Los Angeles and Mumbai premieres

Before its theatrical release, Ramayana had its first premiere in Los Angeles on 27 October 2026, at the Academy Museum's David Geffen Theatre, according to reports cited in the coverage. That premiere positioned the film from the outset as a global release rather than a purely domestic one — a point producer Namit Malhotra has returned to repeatedly. When the film was first announced, Malhotra told E! News, it was thought of primarily as an Indian film going to the world; through its evolution, he said, it has become a production with two master versions, including a separate English-language version with its own edit and rewritten script rather than a straightforward dub.

The Mumbai premiere followed on 3 November, described across reports as a grand pre-release screening and red-carpet event attended by cast members and film dignitaries. NDTV reported that Alia Bhatt and Neetu Kapoor arrived in style for the event, with Alia Bhatt in a sea-foam blue lightweight saree and Neetu Kapoor in a brown monochrome set. WION reported that the Mumbai premiere was attended by the cast and several prominent Bollywood celebrities, including Alia Bhatt, Neetu Kapoor, Badshah and Sharad Kelkar, and that Kunal Kapoor, who plays Indra in the film, wrote a heartfelt note on X after attending. India TV likewise describes a star-studded pre-release screening in Mumbai on 3 November.

The two premieres served different purposes. Los Angeles signalled international ambition and gave the film an early overseas reception to report back home. Mumbai brought the film to the heart of the Hindi film industry days before release, generating photographs, social-media coverage and television attention at exactly the moment advance bookings were peaking. For a film that depends heavily on opening-weekend footfall, that sequence — overseas premiere, domestic premiere, then a Thursday festival release — was designed to keep the film in the news continuously through its final week.

The cast and the story Part 1 tells

Ramayana: Part 1 is headlined by Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Rama, Sai Pallavi as Goddess Sita and Yash as Ravana, the antagonist of the epic. Sunny Deol plays Lord Hanuman and Ravi, or Ravie, Dubey plays Lakshman. The wider ensemble reported by The Indian Express and India TV includes Arun Govil as King Dasharatha, Lara Dutta as Kaikeyi, Indira Krishnan, or Indira Krishna, as Kausalya, Rakul Preet Singh as Surpanakha, Kajal Aggarwal as Mandodari, and Anupam Kher providing the voice-over for Jatayu. Sheeba Chaddha plays Manthara, Faisal Malik plays Kumbhakarna, Saurabh Sachdeva plays Mareech, Adinath Kothare plays Bharata, and Vivek Oberoi and Kunal Kapoor are also part of the film.

The casting deliberately spans film industries and generations. Ranbir Kapoor and Sai Pallavi lead a pan-India ensemble that includes Kannada star Yash as Ravana, Hindi cinema veteran Sunny Deol as Hanuman, and Arun Govil — famous to an earlier generation as television's Rama — now cast as Dasharatha. That layering is part of the film's pitch: it is not presented as a regional film dubbed into other languages, but as a single large production whose cast already speaks to audiences across India. The music, by Oscar-winning composers A. R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer working together, is another part of the same pitch, with songs including Jai Jai Ram, Ravana Tandav, Sita's Aspiration and Main Ram released ahead of the film.

In story terms, WION summarises Part 1 as taking Lord Rama from his birth and upbringing through his 14-year exile after palace intrigue led by Queen Kaikeyi, accompanied by Sita and Lakshmana into the forest, where Ravana abducts Sita and sets the stage for the battle between good and evil. Business Today notes that the second instalment is expected to follow Rama's journey to rescue Sita after her abduction, towards the climactic confrontation in Lanka. Part 1 is therefore, by design, an incomplete story: it establishes the world, the characters and the rupture, and leaves the rescue and the war for the postponed sequel. Audiences buying tickets on 5 November are buying the beginning of a saga, not its resolution.

Advance bookings: what the Sacnilk estimates actually say

Advance bookings for Ramayana: Part 1 have been exceptionally strong, but the numbers need careful reading because trade tracker Sacnilk reports two different totals: one including blocked seats and one without them. Blocked seats are seats held back by cinemas or distributors — for example for bulk bookings, promotions or operational reasons — and they are counted in the gross figure even though no individual customer has yet bought them. The figure without blocked seats is therefore closer to tickets actually sold to the public, while the gross figure shows the total value of seats reserved in the system. Both are Sacnilk-reported estimates, not figures released by the makers, and they change as bookings continue.

The trajectory through the final days illustrates the scale. As of 9 am on 3 November, Business Today reported Sacnilk figures of ₹72.91 crore gross across five show dates, or ₹57.9 crore excluding blocked seats, with 18.56 lakh tickets sold across 59,822 shows. By 2 pm on 4 November, The Indian Express reported Sacnilk's November 4 tracking at ₹106.17 crore across six show dates including blocked seats, or ₹84.92 crore without them. For Day 1 alone, Thursday 5 November, the same tracking put gross advance bookings at ₹41.33 crore, or ₹35.24 crore excluding blocked seats, with 10.80 lakh tickets sold, or 9.17 lakh excluding blocked bookings, across 24,245 shows.

Other reports from the same day show slightly different snapshots because they were taken at different times and, in some cases, covered different numbers of show dates. India TV, citing Sacnilk as of 6 pm on 4 November, reported ₹110.35 crore gross and ₹88.79 crore without blocked seats from 29.57 lakh tickets. ETV Bharat, also citing Sacnilk, reported ₹104.58 crore gross for five days, or ₹83.44 crore without blocked seats. These differences do not mean any one report is wrong; they reflect a fast-moving total captured at different hours. What is consistent across all of them is the direction and the order of magnitude: by the eve of release, advance bookings alone had crossed ₹100 crore gross in India, with Hindi accounting for the large majority — around 81 per cent in the India TV snapshot — and Day 1 accounting for the largest single share.

Formats, languages and distribution on release day

On release day, audiences will encounter Ramayana in a wide range of formats, and the format mix is itself part of the story. The Indian Express notes ticket prices in Mumbai for regular and IMAX 3D screenings starting at approximately ₹530 to ₹680, with premium recliner seats at EROS INOX IMAX, Churchgate, priced as high as ₹2,770 to ₹3,170, and Insignia screenings at INOX Insignia, Worli, reaching ₹2,370 for late-afternoon and night shows. In Delhi-NCR, standard and 3D tickets at PVR ECX, Chanakyapuri, were reported at approximately ₹339 to ₹559 excluding GST, with peak luxury or recliner pricing up to ₹2,400. NDTV's earlier snapshot noted that the Hindi 3D version carried nearly 45 per cent of the Day 1 gross, with premium formats including IMAX, 4DX, Dolby, ICE and EPIQ accounting for around 16 per cent.

That premium skew is commercially important. A film with a reported ₹2,000-crore Part 1 budget cannot recover its cost on standard ticket prices alone in a single weekend; it needs high-priced large-format shows to sell well, and the advance data suggests they have. Language patterns matter too. Hindi leads by a large margin, followed by Telugu and Kannada, with Tamil and Malayalam contributing smaller shares in the snapshots reviewed. State patterns in the 3 November snapshot put Karnataka ahead on Day 1, followed by Maharashtra and Delhi — a reminder that the film's audience is genuinely pan-Indian, even if Hindi remains its centre of gravity.

Distribution is split by territory. The Indian Express reports that Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired international distribution rights, while Karan Johar's Dharma Productions is handling distribution in North India, and India TV similarly notes Dharma Productions for the Hindi-speaking market and Sony Pictures for international distribution outside India. The West Bengal government declared the film tax-free during Dussehra, when the team visited Kolkata for the festivities, according to The Indian Express. Overseas, trade analyst Ramesh Bala reported that the film had crossed ₹100 crore in worldwide advance bookings ahead of release, with strong pre-sales in North America, where NDTV cited Sacnilk figures of more than 51,000 tickets for paid preview shows on 4 November and over 1.40 lakh tickets for the 4 to 8 November period.

Part 2 postponed to 2028: what Namit Malhotra actually said

The biggest news for the franchise beyond release day itself is that Part 2 will not arrive at Diwali 2027 as earlier expected. Producer Namit Malhotra confirmed in an interview with E! News, reported on 3 and 4 November, that Part 2 has been postponed to 2028. His explanation, quoted across WION, Business Today and The Times of India, is that the team wants more time to deliver the finale at the scale of Part 1. He said, in the words reported by WION: “The idea was that, given the excitement the world has shown, we want to take a little more time to ensure that, when we present the grand finale, we have enough time to do what we did on Part One.”

Malhotra added, again as reported by WION: “That extra year is what I genuinely believe we need to do justice to a film of this size. When you see Part 2, it will be a whole other story. We didn't want to rush the job or get ahead of ourselves. We want to deliver the finale in the grandest way it deserves.” Business Today notes that creating the English-language version required a separate edit and a rewrite of the original Hindi script so it could stand as an independent version rather than a straightforward dub — work that illustrates why the production timetable has expanded beyond its original plan. Malhotra has also said the makers initially considered a trilogy before settling on two parts, and that a third part remains a possibility depending on reception, though no Part 3 has been officially announced.

No exact release date in 2028 has been announced in the sources reviewed; India TV notes explicitly that an exact date has not been announced yet. That leaves audiences with a year rather than a date, and with a gap of roughly two years between the two halves of the story instead of one. The postponement also removes a potential Diwali 2027 clash noted by the Free Press Journal with Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Spirit, though that is a consequence rather than the stated reason. The stated reason is creative and logistical: more time for a finale the makers believe must match or exceed Part 1 in scale. Whether audiences accept a two-year wait will depend heavily on how Part 1 lands on 5 November and in the days that follow.

What release day will actually test

Advance bookings, however strong, are not the same as a final opening. The Indian Express notes that the final opening will also depend on walk-in audiences, occupancy and word of mouth, and that is the real test of 5 November. A film can sell heavily in advance to its most committed fans and still falter if general audiences do not follow, if reviews are mixed, or if the 3-hour-15-minute runtime limits the number of shows a cinema can fit in a day. Conversely, strong word of mouth over the extended Diwali weekend can carry a film well beyond its advance base, as families and festival audiences decide to go after hearing from early viewers.

Trade predictions reported ahead of release illustrate the range of expectations rather than a settled outcome. The Indian Express reports a projection of around ₹160 crore worldwide on opening day, which would surpass the global openings of Pathaan and Jawan at around ₹120 crore each but trail Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge at a reported ₹200 crore worldwide opening. ETV Bharat reports trade estimates of around ₹80 crore net in India on Day 1 and a worldwide opening of approximately ₹150 to ₹160 crore gross, conditional on booking momentum translating into footfall. Those are predictions and estimates, not results, and they should be read as such until actual Day 1 collections are reported.

Beyond the numbers, 5 November tests a larger gamble: whether a reverential, large-scale retelling of an epic every Indian audience already knows can feel new enough to justify its scale, its length and its two-year wait for a conclusion. The Mumbai premiere generated glamour and attention; the Los Angeles premiere signalled global ambition; the advance bookings demonstrate demand. What none of those can guarantee is the audience verdict that begins the moment the first public shows start on Thursday. That verdict — in reviews, in social-media reactions and, above all, in whether people keep buying tickets after the first day — is what will determine whether Ramayana: Part 1 is remembered as the opening chapter of a landmark franchise or as a spectacular beginning that asked audiences to wait too long for its end.

Editorial disclosure

This article was researched with AI assistance and reviewed by the publisher before publication. Report factual errors through our contact page.