Ramayana vs Adipurush: Will Nitesh Tiwari Avoid the Mistakes?

Every time a big Hindu mythological film gets announced now, one question lands before anything else: is this the next Baahubali, or the next Adipurush? That’s the whole Ramayana vs Adipurush debate in one line. Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana arrives this Diwali with a reported $500 million behind it, Oscar-winning VFX artists, and Ranbir Kapoor as Ram. Adipurush had money and a proven director too. It still became the punchline of 2023.

So this isn’t idle fan chatter. It’s a trust question. Can the team behind Ramayana actually dodge the specific mistakes that wrecked Adipurush, or is a bigger budget just a bigger way to fail?

Let’s put both films side by side and score it honestly.

Why everyone keeps comparing Ramayana to Adipurush

Adipurush is the cautionary tale nobody in Bollywood wants attached to their name. It grossed ₹392.70 crore worldwide against a ₹500–700 crore budget, a brutal loss on paper (Wikipedia). Only 7% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a pass. Nepal’s capital literally banned it over one line about Sita.

Then the Ramayana teaser dropped on 2 April 2026, and the internet did the exact same thing it did to Adipurush’s 2022 teaser. Same “cartoonish VFX” memes. Same fury. Same side-by-side mockery (Open Magazine).

Tiwari has felt the heat and addressed it head-on, without naming Adipurush. His logic is simple: “I am also a consumer of the content that I create and if I’m not going to offend myself then I’m very confident that I might not end up offending anybody else” (Koimoi). Fair. But confidence didn’t save the last guy either.

Ramayana vs Adipurush: the side-by-side

Here’s the head-to-head on the things that actually move the needle.

A few numbers deserve a second look. Ranbir Kapoor is taking ₹150 crore across the two parts, Yash ₹100 crore as Ravana, and Sai Pallavi just ₹12 crore as Sita. The crew list reads like a Hollywood tentpole: DNEG has won eight Oscars for the likes of Interstellar and all three Dune films, Dune: Part Two VFX supervisor Ravi Bansal is on board, and Hans Zimmer is scoring an Indian film with A.R. Rahman for the first time ever (Outlook India).

If you want the full release-timeline context, we broke down the Ramayana trailer date and Bharat Mandapam launch separately.

Adipurush’s 5 biggest mistakes, and whether Ramayana is repeating them

The Ramayana vs Adipurush comparison only means something if you go mistake by mistake. Daily Jagran’s widely-shared piece pinned down five criticisms that sank the 2023 film (Daily Jagran). Let’s run each one against what Tiwari’s team is doing.

1. Cartoonish VFX. This was the number-one complaint. Adipurush spent roughly ₹250 crore on VFX and still shipped scenes critics called clunky computer graphics. Ramayana’s counter is credibility: DNEG and ReDefine are named on the credits from day one. Adipurush’s chain was so murky that NY VFXwaala publicly denied even working on it. Verdict: Ramayana is better positioned, but the teaser hasn’t fully closed the gap.

2. Character and costume choices. Remember Saif Ali Khan’s Raavan buzz cut? Fans called it comical, and Hindu groups objected to characters missing the sacred Janeu thread. Ramayana’s early flak is different in kind. Some X users called Ranbir’s Ram “aged.” Milder, but not zero. Verdict: risk reduced, not retired.

3. Weak, modern dialogue. Lines like “jalegi tere baap ki” and “teri bua ka bageecha hai kya” felt like street slang dropped into a scripture. Writer Manoj Muntashir eventually issued an unconditional apology (India Forums). Ramayana hasn’t released a single line of dialogue yet. Verdict: unknown. This one we simply can’t score.

4. No emotional depth. Critics said Adipurush never made you feel anything for its heroes. Too early to judge Ramayana on story here. Tiwari built his name on emotion, though. Dangal and Chhichhore worked because they made people cry, not because of spectacle. Verdict: leaning in Ramayana’s favour, unproven.

5. CGI over story. And here’s the one that actually matters most.

The Baahubali lesson everyone’s ignoring

Most coverage treats Ramayana’s ₹4,000 crore budget as proof it’ll look better. That assumption falls apart the second you look at Baahubali. S.S. Rajamouli’s epic cost ₹430 crore total, with a VFX spend of just over ₹100 crore, less than half of what Adipurush poured into effects. And it’s still the gold standard, precisely because it leaned on practical sets, real locations, and VFX used for scale rather than as a substitute for actual production (DNA India).

Adipurush tried to paint everything digitally and it showed. So budget size is a weak predictor here. Execution discipline is the real signal. Ramayana shooting on IMAX with named Hollywood production designers and action choreographers points the right way. It’s the same territory India’s biggest mythological epics and franchises have chased for years.

The one red flag Ramayana still hasn’t shaken

Here’s what the puff pieces skip. The April 2026 teaser didn’t just get mixed reviews. It got roasted. Viral posts called it “AI slop packaged as god-level VFX,” flagged a blue turban that seemed to change colour between shots, and one line summed up the mood: “We got Indian Avengers on PS4 before GTA 6” (Oneindia).

Yash, who plays Ravana, broke the cast’s silence. He called the visuals photorealistic and “still a work in progress,” promising the finished film aims to be “top-notch” (m9.news). Hrithik Roshan backed the film too, arguing on Instagram that “bad VFX exists… but so does vision.” His point: don’t confuse a stylistic swing with a technical miss.

Some claim the weaker teaser was released on purpose to bait buzz, but that’s an unverified account from a single set visit, so treat it as gossip, not fact. Meanwhile the teaser’s chariot sequence and the Zimmer–Rahman score drew genuine praise even from critics. Yash has talked more about the ambition of it all in his interview alongside Namit Malhotra, and Malhotra’s VFX ambitions for Indian cinema are a big part of why fans want this to work.

The trailer on 24 July 2026 is the real test. A polished trailer buries the teaser memes. A shaky one, and the Adipurush comparisons harden into a verdict.

The verdict: can Nitesh Tiwari deliver where Om Raut didn’t?

Straight answer? Ramayana is far better positioned than Adipurush ever was, but “better positioned” is not “safe.”

The reassuring stuff is real. A director who makes you feel things. A VFX house with eight Oscars and its name on the poster. A composer duo that’s never happened before. Compare that to Adipurush’s murky effects vendors, tone-deaf dialogue, and a director whose Tanhaji hit meant nothing once the CGI hit screens. Om Raut had a blockbuster right before Adipurush too, remember. Pedigree is not a force field.

The worry is that Ramayana already tripped on the same teaser-stage backlash, the exact spot where Adipurush’s death spiral began. If the final VFX still reads as “AI video game,” all the DNEG credits in the world won’t save it. Fans don’t grade on a budget curve. They grade on whether Ram looks like Ram.

My honest read: this one’s genuinely trying to be Baahubali, not Adipurush. The instincts are right, the crew is right, the intent is right. But I’m not calling it paisa vasool until that 24 July trailer proves the effects have grown up. Watch that drop, then judge.

For the wider release picture, keep an eye on our upcoming Bollywood movies calendar, and while you’re weighing sources, our Pinkvilla vs AllYourChoice breakdown shows how we cover this stuff differently.

Where do you land on Ramayana vs Adipurush? Drop your bet before the trailer lands.