The biggest day of Ramayana Part One’s opening week was a Monday. The film took in Rs 107.50 crore net in India that day, nearly twice its Sunday haul. By Wednesday, Nitesh Tiwari’s film had crossed Rs 500 crore in India and Rs 900 crore worldwide.
Both figures come from ticket sales. The difference lies in where those tickets were sold and how the tax was counted.
How the Rs 934.55 crore adds up
Box-office tracker Sacnilk puts the film’s first-week India gross at Rs 611.05 crore. That’s the amount collected from tickets sold in India, including tax. Take the tax out and the figure drops to Rs 511.10 crore, the India net. Both figures cover the same seven days and all five language versions.
Cinemas overseas brought in another Rs 323.50 crore, about 35 per cent of the worldwide total. Add that to the India gross of Rs 611.05 crore and you get Rs 934.55 crore worldwide. When comparing two films, check which column the number comes from. An India net figure is comparable with another India net figure over the same stretch of days.
Where the first-week money came from
The Hindi version brought in Rs 394 crore net, a little over three-quarters of the domestic total. Kannada was the next biggest contributor at Rs 45.70 crore, followed by Telugu at Rs 35.75 crore. Tamil and Malayalam together brought in another Rs 35.65 crore. All four versions accounted for roughly Rs 117 crore of the India net.
Sacnilk ranks Ramayana third among Indian films for worldwide gross over their first seven days, behind Pushpa 2 and Dhurandhar 2. Its first week also took it past the entire worldwide run of Ranbir Kapoor’s previous biggest grosser, Animal. The next milestone is Rs 1,000 crore worldwide, with about Rs 65 crore to go at the end of Wednesday.
What reaches the filmmakers
The worldwide gross measures what audiences spent on tickets. After tax, cinemas and distributors divide the proceeds according to their agreements. What eventually reaches the producer depends on the deals struck for the film. Money from streaming and television rights is accounted for separately.
For a snapshot of how the film held up through the week, look at Wednesday. Its India net fell nearly 25 per cent from Tuesday to Rs 70.65 crore. Even after that drop, it brought in almost Rs 6 crore more than it had on opening day.