Mumbai’s cinemas are doing something usually reserved for the rarest event films. Ramayana is now being programmed on a true 24-hour cycle in parts of the city, with theatres staying operational through the night and into the first hours of the morning to meet demand.
On Tuesday, among the 3D shows, Movietime Cubic Mall has a screening at 12:35 am, MovieMax Sion has shows at 1:15 am and 2:10 am, and Cinepolis Lake Shore Thane has one at 12:40 am. The 2D roster is just as extraordinary: INOX Malad at 1:30 am, Maxus Borivali at 3:05 am, and screenings past midnight across the suburbs. For the 4DX experience, Cinepolis Lake Shore Thane has scheduled a show at 12:10 am.
The round-the-clock programming is the clearest sign yet of the scale of the film’s run. Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Part One, which released on November 5 ahead of Diwali, has crossed Rs 275 crore net in India and Rs 600 crore in worldwide gross, and the numbers keep climbing.
Tuesday’s advance booking underlines the momentum. Day 6 advance sales stand at Rs 49.53 crore, with 13.18 lakh tickets booked across 25,395 shows in 3,036 cinemas. Hindi accounts for 80 per cent of the gross, and standard 3D shows are leading the formats — a sign that audiences are choosing the big-screen spectacle over the ordinary viewing experience.
The film’s fifth day was its biggest so far. Monday’s India net was projected to cross Rs 105 crore, which would make it only the second Bollywood film, after Dhurandhar 2, to record a Rs 100 crore single day. Diwali day itself had already set a record for a Bollywood release, with the film earning Rs 56.15 crore in India on the festival day.
The cast — Ranbir Kapoor, Sai Pallavi, Yash, Ravi Dubey, Anupam Kher, Kajal Aggarwal and Sunny Deol — has given the film a pan-Indian pull, and the release in five languages has paid off. The Hindi version dominates, but the Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam versions have all contributed strongly, and the film is set to release in Hong Kong on November 12.
For the exhibition trade, Ramayana is the kind of film that justifies the big screen. Multiplexes that spent the year worrying about footfalls are now running shows at 3 am, and audiences are turning up for them. It is a reminder that when a film captures the public imagination at this scale, the old rules — about show timings, about opening weekends, about what a Tuesday can do — simply stop applying.
Six days in, Ramayana is no longer just a hit. It is a phenomenon, and Mumbai’s 24-hour cinemas are its most visible proof.
