The rumours about Ramayana producer Namit Malhotra rejecting a staggering OTT deal of INR 700 crores for his upcoming two-part mythological epic are spreading like wildfire on social media. But Malhotra and his team are eyeing an even greater amount, up to INR 1,000 crores.
Considering the project’s substantial budget, this update, while making sense to many, has also emerged as something too good to be true for others.
Is this a masterstroke of confidence in a “legacy film”, or is it a calculated PR stunt designed to inflate the movie’s perceived value?
As per online reports, the total budget for the two-part epic has reached up to INR 4,000 crores.
From a purely mathematical standpoint, a INR 700 crore offer (which would be the highest ever for an Indian film) covers less than 20% of the production cost. By rejecting this and eyeing INR 1,000 crores, Malhotra is reportedly following the “Dhurandhar Strategy”.
This strategy involves holding onto rights until the hype reaches a fever pitch, ensuring that digital, satellite, and music rights together recover a significant chunk of the budget before the first ticket is even sold.
Let’s say these rumours are true. If that’s the case, then this move makes sense. Namit Malhotra isn’t just a Bollywood producer. He is the CEO of DNEG, the Oscar-winning VFX giant behind Dune and Oppenheimer. He understands global IP value better than most.
With Yash (the face of the KGF phenomenon) and Ranbir Kapoor (coming off the massive success of Animal), the “pan-India” and “pan-global” appeal isn’t going anywhere.
Recruiting an Academy Award winner like Hans Zimmer alongside A.R. Rahman signals that the makers are treating this as a global product, not just a domestic release.
On the other hand, sceptics, including some industry analysts, argue that these numbers might be inflated to create a “FOMO” (Fear Of Missing Out) environment for streaming giants.
By leaking that a INR 700 crore deal was “too low”, the PR machinery forces Netflix, Amazon Prime, or JioHotstar to reconsider their valuations.
In psychology, “anchoring” is a negotiation tactic where you set a high initial price to make a subsequent high price seem reasonable. By floating the INR 1,000 crore figure now, they make a future INR 800–850 crore deal look like a “bargain” for the platform.
With other big-ticket films like Pushpa 2 and Kalki 2898 AD fetching massive sums, Ramayana needs to position itself as the “biggest of them all” to maintain its status as the ultimate cinematic event of 2026.
The truth likely lies in the middle.
While the INR 1,000 crore figure is almost certainly a target rather than a signed contract, the rejection of a INR 700 crore offer is plausible given the sheer scale of the investment. If the film recovers INR 1,000 crores from OTT and another INR 500–700 crores from satellite and music, the producers still need to earn over INR 2,500 crores at the global box office just to break even.
In an era where Dhurandhar 2 has already crossed the INR 1,500 crore mark worldwide with ease, the Ramayana team is betting that the Indian audience’s appetite for high-quality mythological epics is bottomless.
Whether it’s a PR stunt or a genuine negotiation, Namit Malhotra has succeeded in one thing: making Ramayana the most talked-about financial entity in Indian cinema. Let’s see how the final product turns out. Stay tuned for more updates.
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