Mumbai: The third day beat the first. Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana Part One collected ₹69.80 crore net in India on Saturday, up from ₹64.85 crore on opening day and 45.3% above Friday's ₹48.05 crore, according to trade estimates.
The film released on November 5. Its three-day India net stands at ₹182.70 crore and India gross at ₹218.25 crore. Overseas, Saturday brought in about ₹60 crore, pushing the overseas total to ₹157.25 crore and the worldwide gross to ₹375.50 crore.
Saturday's run covered 23,696 shows at an average occupancy of 41.3%. The Hindi version did the heavy lifting with ₹53 crore from 19,927 shows. Kannada added ₹6.30 crore, Telugu ₹6 crore, Tamil ₹2.50 crore and Malayalam ₹2 crore. Hindi accounts for 74.4% of the India net.
For Sunday, the fourth day, advance bookings have already touched ₹39.10 crore gross, with 12.02 lakh tickets sold across 23,061 shows. Bengaluru leads the cities with ₹6.52 crore, ahead of Mumbai at ₹4.03 crore and Hyderabad at ₹2.55 crore.
The cast includes Ranbir Kapoor as Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Yash as Ravana, with Sunny Deol, Ravie Dubey, Lara Dutta and Rakul Preet Singh. Deol appears in a post-credit scene as Hanuman, his face unseen, his voice heard.
The two-part epic is reported to carry a ₹4,000 crore price tag. Yash, a co-producer, has said that figure covers both films and their promotion. No standalone budget for Part One has been disclosed.
Trade analysts expect Sunday to hold, helped by the Lakshmi Puja window falling late in the evening. The harder test begins Monday, when the festival boost fades and weekday footfalls decide how far the film runs.