India’s $200 Million Fantasy Epic Is Off to a Troubling Box Office Start



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The top-five list of domestic box office was bookended by two international titles this past weekend. Japan’s Godzilla Minus Zero took the number-one spot with a record-breaking haul, while India’s Ramayana: Rise of a Legend claimed the fifth position. Based on a mythological text sacred to Hindus, Ramayana is notable for being the most expensive Indian film ever made. According to its producer, Namit Malhotra, the two-part project cost around $400 million to produce. Ramayana will be followed by a sequel that’s currently slated for a 2028 release.

Godzilla Minus Zero, on the other hand, is the sequel to 2023’s word-of-mouth sensation Godzilla Minus One. The original movie defied the odds to gross more than $110 million worldwide against a reported budget of $10 million, and rode a wave of positive buzz to win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Godzilla Minus One now holds a 99% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, while Godzilla Minus Zero is sitting at a 90% score on the aggregator website.























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Middle-earth

Personality Quiz

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The Lord of the Rings/
Which Character Are You

Ten Questions · One Fate
Which Lord of the Rings Character Are You?
The Road Goes Ever On

From the green hills of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, every soul in Middle-earth carries a destiny. Ten questions stand between you and the truth of who you are. Answer honestly, because the Ring has a way of revealing what we most want to hide.

The Eight Fates

💍Frodo

🌿Samwise

👑Aragorn

🔥Gandalf

🏹Legolas

🪓Gimli

👁Sauron

🪨Gollum

Stage 1 of 10Burden

You are handed a responsibility that could destroy you. What do you do?
The weight of the world falls on unlikely shoulders.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

Stage 2 of 10Loyalty

Your closest companion is heading into terrible danger. You:
True loyalty is revealed not in comfort, but in crisis.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

Stage 3 of 10Power

Enormous power is within your reach. Your instinct is:
Power corrupts, but only those who reach for it.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

Stage 4 of 10Home

What does home mean to you?
Where we long to return reveals who we truly are.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

Stage 5 of 10Combat

When a battle is upon you, your approach is:
War reveals what we are made of, whether we like it or not.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

Stage 6 of 10Wisdom

Someone comes to you for advice in their darkest hour. You:
Wisdom is not knowing all the answers. It is knowing which questions to ask.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

Stage 7 of 10Identity

How do you see yourself, honestly?
Self-knowledge is the most dangerous kind.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

Stage 8 of 10Nature

Which of these best describes your relationship with the natural world?
Middle-earth speaks to those who know how to listen.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

Stage 9 of 10Mercy

You meet a wretched, pitiable creature who has done terrible things. You:
How we treat the fallen reveals the height of our character.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

Stage 10 of 10Legacy

When the quest is over and the songs are sung, what do you hope they say about you?
In the end, we are all just stories.




Press 1 to 4 to choose

The Fellowship Has Spoken
Your Place in Middle-earth

💍
Frodo Baggins
The Ring-bearer
You carry it alone, even when you do not have to.

You carry something heavy, and you carry it alone even when you do not have to. You were not born for greatness, and that is precisely why greatness chose you. Your courage is not the roaring, sword-swinging kind. It is quiet, stubborn and terrifying in its refusal to quit. The Ring weighs on you more than anyone can see, and still you walk toward the fire. That is not weakness. That is the rarest kind of strength there is.

QuietStubbornBurdenedUnbreakable

🌿
Samwise Gamgee
The Gardener
Not the most powerful. Easily the most essential.

You are, without question, the best of them. Not the most powerful, not the most celebrated, but the most essential. Your loyalty is not a trait, it is a force of nature. You would carry the person you love up the slopes of Mount Doom if it came to that, and we both know you would do it without being asked. The world needs more people like you, and the world is lucky it has even one.

LoyalSteadyWarmDevoted

👑
Aragorn
The King in Waiting
The crown was always yours. The worthiness you had to earn.

You were born to lead, and you have spent years running from it. The crown is yours by right, but you know better than anyone that right means nothing without the will and the worthiness to back it up. You are tempered by loss, shaped by long roads, and defined by a code of honour you hold to even when nobody is watching. When you finally step forward, the world shifts, because it was always waiting for you.

NobleReluctantHonourableTested

🔥
Gandalf
The Grey Pilgrim
You do not fight the battle. You light the people who will.

You have seen more than you let on, and you say less than you know, which is exactly as it should be. You are a catalyst. You do not fight the battles yourself, you ignite the people who can. Your wisdom comes not from books but from an age of watching what happens when it is ignored. You arrive precisely when you mean to, and your presence alone changes what is possible.

WisePatientGuidingFormidable

🏹
Legolas
The Elf of Mirkwood
You see it coming long before anybody else looks up.

Graceful, perceptive and almost preternaturally calm under pressure, you see things others miss and act before others react. You do not need to make a scene to be remarkable, your presence speaks for itself. You are loyal to those you choose to stand beside, and that choice is not made lightly. You have lived long enough to know that the most beautiful things in this world are also the most fragile, and that is why you fight to protect them.

PreciseWatchfulGracefulUnhurried

🪓
Gimli
Son of Gloin
You arrived suspicious of everyone and left ready to die for an elf.

You are loud, proud and absolutely formidable, and beneath all of that is one of the most fiercely loyal hearts in Middle-earth. You do not do anything by half measures. Your friendships are forged like iron, your grudges run as deep as mines, and your courage in battle is the kind that makes legends. You came into this fellowship suspicious of everyone and ended it willing to die for an elf. That is not a small thing. That is everything.

FierceProudBluntDevoted

👁
Sauron
The Dark Lord
You think in centuries and act in absolutes.

You think in centuries and act in absolutes. Order, dominion, control, not because you are cruel by nature but because you have decided that the world left to itself always falls apart, and you are the only one with the vision and the will to hold it together. You were not always this. Something was lost, or taken, or betrayed, and the version of you that stands now is the answer to that wound. The tragedy is that you are not entirely wrong, just entirely too far gone to course-correct.

AbsolutePatientRelentlessConsumed

🪨
Gollum
What Is Left of Smeagol
Two voices, and the better one does not win often enough.

You are a study in contradiction, pitiable and dangerous, cunning and broken, capable of both cruelty and something that once resembled love. You are defined by loss: of innocence, of self, of the one thing that gave your existence meaning. Two voices war inside you constantly, and the tragedy is that the better one sometimes wins, just not often enough and never at the right moment. You are a warning, yes, but also a mirror.

DividedCunningHauntedPitiable

Your Closest Matches

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Collider.com · Middle-earth

Here’s How Much ‘Ramayana’ Grossed at the Box Office

Coincidentally, both Godzilla Minus Zero and Ramayana hold higher audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes. While the period action sequel is now perched at a “Verified Hot” 96% audience score on the aggregator website, Ramayana holds a “Verified Hot” 93% score. Ramayana’s critics’ score, on the other hand, is 76% based on 50 reviews currently listed on the site. The movie follows Lord Rama after his banishment from the kingdom of Ayodhya. He is joined by his brother Lakshman and his wife Sita. Meanwhile, the demon king Ravana captures the kingdom of Lanka. The first part ends with Ravana kidnapping Sita, setting up an epic battle between good and evil.

Ravana’s eventual defeat, which will be depicted in the sequel, is celebrated by Hindus all over the world as the festival of Dussehra. Rama’s return home, on the other hand, is celebrated as Diwali. Ramayana‘s release was timed to Diwali this year. Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, who previously directed the highest-grossing Indian film of all time at the global box office — the sports drama Dangal — Ramayana grossed $12 million domestically this weekend. It grossed $55 million worldwide, with the majority of its haul coming from India. Whether this is enough to justify its $200 million budget, and the release of an equally expensive sequel, remains to be seen.

You can watch Ramayana in nearly 1,500 theaters in North America, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.


ramayana-rise-of-a-legend-poster.jpg


Release Date

November 6, 2026

Runtime

154 Minutes

Director

Nitesh Tiwari


https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/world-of-ramayana.jpg?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop
https://collider.com/ramayana-india-lord-of-the-rings-replacement-box-office-debut/


Rohan Naahar
Almontather Rassoul

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