Ramayana vs Dhurandhar 2 Box Office: Who Opens Bigger?
Ramayana: Part One hit screens this morning. Tonight the whole trade is staring at one fight: the Ramayana vs Dhurandhar 2 box office opening. Ranveer Singh’s sequel set the Bollywood bar back in March. Ranbir Kapoor’s ₹1,400 crore-plus epic now has to clear it.
So who’s ahead, as of Nov 5? Dhurandhar 2 still owns India Day 1. Ramayana is winning on price per ticket and IMAX demand.
The worldwide crown? Nobody knows yet. Real Day 1 numbers land tomorrow.
Quick verdict (as of Nov 5, 2026)
- India Day 1: Dhurandhar 2, comfortably. Its ₹145.55 crore net opening (previews included) sits well above even the boldest Ramayana forecast.
- Per-ticket money and IMAX: Ramayana. Its US premiere tickets averaged $22.06 against Dhurandhar 2’s $15.99.
- Worldwide opening: Too early. Ask again on Nov 6.
Ramayana vs Dhurandhar 2 box office: the side-by-side table
One warning before you forward this to the family group. Every Ramayana figure below is advance sales or a forecast. Dhurandhar 2’s numbers are final collections from March. Keep that in mind and the Ramayana vs Dhurandhar 2 box office picture gets a lot clearer.
| Criteria | Dhurandhar 2 | Ramayana: Part One | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Release | Mar 19, 2026 (paid previews Mar 18) | Nov 5, 2026 (North America premieres Nov 4) | — |
| Booking window | 12 days (opened Mar 7) | 16 days (opened Oct 20) | Ramayana |
| First day of bookings (ex-blocks) | ₹7.8 cr | ₹3.61 cr | Dhurandhar 2 |
| Day 1 India advance | ₹52.35 cr (excl. premieres) | ₹42.96 cr ex-blocks / ₹50.08 cr incl. blocks (6 AM, Nov 5) | Dhurandhar 2, narrowly |
| India paid previews | ~₹43 cr net | None confirmed | Dhurandhar 2 |
| Day 1 India net | ₹102.55 cr + ₹43 cr previews = ₹145.55 cr | Forecast ₹65–105 cr, ₹85 cr expected | Dhurandhar 2 |
| US premiere advance, 9 days out | $686K, 42.8K tickets, 1,129 shows | $631.7K, 28.6K tickets, 1,820 shows | Dhurandhar 2, narrowly |
| Average US ticket price | $15.99 | $22.06 | Ramayana |
| Overseas opening | ~$21.25M | $20–25M projected (weekend) | Open |
| Reported budget | Not verified | ₹1,400–1,500 cr incl. marketing | — |
India Day 1: why Dhurandhar 2 still leads
Dhurandhar 2 didn’t just open big. It opened with a head start.
Its March 18 paid previews brought in about ₹43 crore net before a single regular show ran. Then Day 1 proper added ₹102.55 crore net across 21,728 shows, as Business Today reported. Total: ₹145.55 crore net, or ₹172.63 crore gross.
That number flattened Stree 2, Pathaan, Animal and Jawan. It beat Baahubali 2 (₹121 crore) and RRR (₹133 crore) too. Only Pushpa 2, at ₹164 crore, opened higher.
For scale, the first Dhurandhar opened to about ₹28.60 crore in December 2025. That’s how much franchise hype the sequel built.
Ramayana’s best case doesn’t reach that peak. Sacnilk’s forecast pegs its India Day 1 at ₹65 crore low, ₹85 crore expected and ₹105 crore high (net). Even the top end only nudges past Dhurandhar 2’s regular-show figure. The preview-boosted ₹145.55 crore stays out of reach.
The advance booking gap is smaller than it looks
Here’s the twist. As of 6 AM IST today, the Sacnilk advance tracker had Ramayana’s Day 1 pre-sales at ₹50.08 crore gross with block seats. Strip the blocks and it’s ₹42.96 crore.
That’s 14.05 lakh tickets across 26,615 shows, at 23% occupancy.
Dhurandhar 2’s record Day 1 pre-sales stood at ₹52.35 crore, excluding premiere sales. In October, Koimoi had projected Ramayana at roughly ₹32–37 crore. It blew past that, even with block seats stripped out.
The late surge tells the story:
- Nov 1: ₹22.77 crore gross for Day 1
- Nov 2: ₹25.94 crore
- Nov 5, 6 AM: ₹50.08 crore
Bookings nearly doubled in the final three days. With block seats counted, Ramayana sat about ₹2 crore short of the record at 6 AM. Previews are what really separate these two.
Overseas and IMAX: where Ramayana fights back
Ramayana sells fewer tickets abroad, but it charges a lot more for them.
Koimoi’s like-for-like US premiere check compared both films nine days out. Ramayana had $631.7K from 28.6K tickets. Dhurandhar 2 had $686K from 42.8K tickets at the same stage.
Read that again. Dhurandhar 2 sold over 14,000 more tickets, yet led by only about $54K. The $22.06 vs $15.99 average price does the heavy lifting. Ramayana also ran on 1,820 shows against 1,129.
As of Oct 31, Ramayana’s US premiere advance stood at $944,863 from 43,666 tickets in 860 locations. Add Canada and it crossed about $1.065 million. Depending on which date you compare, trackers have it trailing Dhurandhar 2 in the US by a single-digit to low-double-digit margin.
Now the overseas opening. Dhurandhar 2 opened to about $21.25 million overseas, a Pinkvilla figure that Sacnilk cites. Trade projections for Ramayana’s overseas opening weekend run $20–25 million. That one’s a genuine coin toss.
IMAX is Ramayana’s trump card
The makers shot Ramayana for IMAX, and fans are paying up for it. As of Oct 29, IMAX 3D made up about 20% of India advance gross, running at 59% occupancy.
Premium formats overall pulled 27% of gross from just 5% of shows. One Mumbai IMAX show sold out at ₹2,770 a seat. Nobody pays that for a casual night out. That’s “I’ve waited years for this” money.
Why the Ramayana vs Dhurandhar 2 numbers aren’t apples-to-apples
Comparing these two openings directly is messy. Four things skew it:
- Paid previews. Dhurandhar 2 banked ~₹43 crore net from previews. Sacnilk’s tracker shows ₹0 for a Nov 4 India premiere of Ramayana.
- Booking windows. Dhurandhar 2 had 12 days of pre-sales. Ramayana had 16, but started slower: ₹3.61 crore ex-blocks on its first day against ₹7.8 crore. Sacnilk itself calls that comparison unfair, since Dhurandhar’s first day included previews.
- Block seats. Bulk bookings inflate advance gross, which is why Sacnilk quotes Ramayana both ways. Confused by nett, gross and blocks? Our explainer on how box office collection is calculated in India breaks it down.
- Language mix. Hindi made up about 84% of Ramayana’s India sales as of Nov 1. Kannada stood at ₹3.46 crore and Telugu at ₹1.66 crore, so the South markets still have room to grow.
One more thing. Ramayana’s Day 1 occupancy sits at 23% in advance, while Days 2 to 6 show 11–14%. Thursday is the peak on paper, and walk-in crowds will decide the rest.
Who wins the Ramayana vs Dhurandhar 2 box office race: verdict by reader type
- You track India records: Dhurandhar 2. ₹145.55 crore isn’t falling this week.
- You care about money per seat: Ramayana. Higher overseas prices and a 27% premium-format share make every ticket count for more.
- You’re watching the worldwide number: Wait for tomorrow. One trade estimate says Ramayana’s worldwide opening day could top ₹200 crore if momentum holds. Sacnilk expects an India opening weekend of ₹240 crore net, within a ₹175–350 crore range.
- You’re thinking long game: Ramayana carries a reported ₹1,400–1,500 crore budget. Sacnilk expects a lifetime worldwide gross of ₹1,250–1,450 crore. Put those side by side and you see why the opening matters so much.
Want the creative side of the debate instead of the money? Our Ramayana vs Adipurush piece looks at what this film had to fix.
What to watch this weekend
- Day 1 actuals (Nov 6): does Ramayana clear the ₹85 crore expected mark, or slide toward ₹65 crore?
- Walk-ins: can the 23% advance occupancy climb through the evening shows?
- The South: Kannada and Telugu sales are small for now. A pickup there would lift the weekend.
- Overseas weekend: anything above $21.25 million beats Dhurandhar 2’s overseas opening.
We’ll slot Ramayana into our highest-grossing Bollywood movies of 2026 list once real collections come in.
My gut says Ramayana won’t touch ₹145.55 crore on Day 1 in the Ramayana vs Dhurandhar 2 box office fight. Honestly, it doesn’t need to. Audiences will judge a film this expensive on its second week, not its first Thursday. Picture abhi baaki hai, dost.