Ramayana advance booking ROARS: 1.70 lakh tickets sold with 5 days to go; Ranbir Kapoor, Yash eye HISTORIC opening

The Ranbir Kapoor- and Yash-led Ramayana is just 5 days away from release, and advance bookings have started gaining solid momentum across the board. As of Saturday at 3 PM, the Nitesh Tiwari-directed epic has sold 1.70 lakh tickets in the top 3 national chains - PVRInox and Cinepolis - and is all set to hit the 2 lakh pre-sales mark by the end of Sunday.

From there, it will be targeting to just about double up, and land up in the pre-sales zone of Drishyam 3. The pricing is high, and the release is wider, so the film will be looking to open in the north of Drishyam 3. Having said that, Ramayana might be hit by the pre-Diwali factor too, so it's going to be an interesting wait-and-watch scenario. The momentum is in its favour, and that is indicative of stronger advances as the D-Day nears.

The advances have started to open up in the non-national chains too now, and this will give a clearer idea of the trajectory for opening day. All in all, a big opening day is on the cards for Ramayana, and the days ahead will tell us how big.

A start bigger than Animal and Toxic is assured for both Ranbir Kapoor and Yash, and we wait and watch to see if it can top Jawan to emerge the 3rd biggest opener of all time.