Ramayana crosses Rs 823.5 crore globally in six days

A Jakarta welcome fit for an epic

Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Rise of a Legend began its Indonesian run on November 11 with a premiere in Jakarta that felt less like a routine red carpet and more like a festival. Fans arrived in traditional Indian dress, shopped for bangles, applied henna, posed on a replica throne and came dressed as Rama, Sita, Lakshman and Ravana.

The film stars Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Rama, Sai Pallavi as Goddess Sita, Yash as Ravana and Ravie Dubey as Lakshman. Thailand had already shown what the epic can do in Southeast Asia: the film opened there on November 5 and collected around $550,000, roughly Rs 5.15 crore, over its extended weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. That makes it one of the highest-grossing Indian releases in the country.

Why Southeast Asia is different

The excitement is no surprise to anyone who knows the region’s storytelling traditions. Indonesia has the Kakawin Ramayana, an Old Javanese retelling of the epic, while Thailand knows the story as the Ramakien. Thai audiences are watching Ramayana: Rise of a Legend in Hindi, English and Thai, a sign that the film is being treated as local heritage as much as an Indian import.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlined that connection during an earlier visit to Indonesia.

India and Indonesia do not just share the sea; we also share our history.

The film, drawn from Valmiki’s Ramayan, the Adbhuta Ramayan and Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, sits squarely inside that shared cultural memory.

The numbers behind the run

Trade tracker Sacnilk puts the global cume at Rs 823.50 crore after six days. Domestic collections account for Rs 526.50 crore gross across Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, so overseas markets have already added nearly Rs 300 crore to the total.

Western openings have been robust too:

• United States: $12.2 million (around Rs 114.48 crore)
• United Kingdom: GBP 2.2 million (around Rs 27.55 crore)
• Australia: $1,867,330 (around Rs 17.52 crore)
• Germany: $627,810 (around Rs 5.89 crore)

In North America, it landed as the second-highest-grossing new release behind Godzilla Minus Zero.

What comes next

Sony Pictures International is distributing the film, and the rollout is far from over. Hong Kong, Mexico and Central Asia open on November 12; Brazil, Italy, Ukraine and Hungary follow on November 19; Poland on November 20; and Argentina, Central America, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru on November 26. The reported budget of over Rs 4,500 crore is steep, but the split between domestic and international business suggests the producers are building for a long global run rather than a front-loaded weekend.

The film’s post-credit scene and a new Hanuman Chalisa music video, which introduces Sunny Deol as Lord Hanuman, give fans one more reason to stay through the credits.

Source: India Today