As “Ramayana Part 1” opens worldwide on Nov. 5, producer Namit Malhotra says the decision to adapt the Indian epic at this scale came once the talent, experience and filmmaking muscle needed to do the story justice were finally in place.
Directed by Nitesh Tiwari (“Dangal,” “Chhichhore”), the first of two films stars Ranbir Kapoor as Rama, the prince sent into exile whose wife Sita (Sai Pallavi) is abducted by Ravana (Yash), the king of Lanka. The score unites A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer on an Indian film for the first time. T-Series is the music label, and Amazon Music is the music streaming partner.
“We have contributed to some of the biggest films in the world, and I felt, why shouldn’t we bring that same ambition to ‘Ramayana’? Of course, that comes with a tremendous responsibility because of what Lord Ram means to so many people,” Malhotra tells Variety.
Malhotra is the founder and CEO of DNEG, the visual effects company that has won eight Oscars, most recently for “Dune: Part Two.” DNEG and its sister company ReDefine are handling the visual effects on “Ramayana,” which Malhotra’s Prime Focus Studios produces with Yash’s Monster Mind Creations.
For the producer, any global reach has to start with staying faithful to the source. When he first met Zimmer, the composer’s immediate interest was in why the “Ramayana” still resonates with people thousands of years on. “That connection is what we have to honor. We have artists from across the world bringing their best to it, with the hope that Indian audiences feel proud and audiences discovering ‘Ramayana’ for the first time understand why it is so special to us,” Malhotra says.
Tiwari says the opportunity was to bring viewers closer to a story they already love, through intimate performances as well as cinematic scale. “There is an enormous difference between knowing that something happened and feeling what it meant to the people involved. That is where my attention has been: the relationships, the difficult choices and the emotions within those moments,” he says. “Namit’s vision has given us the means to realize this world on an extraordinary scale. My responsibility is to make sure audiences feel connected to the people who inhabit it.”
The characters and major events of the “Ramayana” are familiar to millions, which leaves the director with little room for plot surprises.
“Knowing the outcome doesn’t necessarily lessen the emotion. We return to stories we love because they continue to make us feel something, and sometimes our understanding of them changes as we grow older,” Tiwari says. “The discovery can lie in a character’s reaction, an exchange between two people or the weight of a decision. If you are fully invested in that moment, knowing what comes next can actually make it more moving. My job is to make those moments feel immediate and truthful, so the audience experiences the journey rather than simply recognizes the events.”
His earlier films, he says, showed him how hard audiences respond to the truth of a relationship – a small gesture between a parent and child, or a moment between friends. “The scale is vastly different, and the cultural responsibility is considerable, but I still have to ask whether a scene feels honest and whether we care about the people in it,” Tiwari says. “However ambitious the filmmaking becomes, you cannot lose your attention to those details. They are what give the larger moments their emotional weight.”
Music was central to Malhotra’s plan from day one, and it is also a personal passion. “When I thought about who could bring that vision to life, it was A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer. There was no plan B,” he says. “What excited us was the possibility of creating a new sound together. I would tell A.R. Rahman that I wanted the emotional familiarity of the music we love, expressed in a melody of today.”
The score was recorded with an orchestra at AIR Studios in London, where Malhotra watched Indian and Western musicians work on the story together and wished everyone could share the experience. “Hearing their compositions come alive with the orchestra in London was extraordinary. It made me feel that the music could carry the emotion of ‘Ramayana’ to people everywhere,” he says.
From the start, the producer saw music as one of the strongest ways to connect audiences with the film before they reached a cinema, and the first job was writing songs people would want to come back to. Each track has been given its own release window, starting with “Jai Jai Ram,” which arrived on Sept. 14 to coincide with the Ganesh Chaturthi festival. Seeing audiences embrace it was deeply rewarding for Malhotra. “I called A.R. Rahman and said, you have had so many songs that people love, but this is my first with you,” he recalls.
The ambition, he says, is for the songs, performances and events around the album to reach people worldwide and become memorable experiences in their own right. “Whether something becomes a cultural moment is ultimately for people to decide. If these songs become part of their celebrations, their prayers or their everyday lives, that would mean an enormous amount to me.”
Tiwari says he always comes back to what a scene needs – what the character is feeling and what the audience should take from that moment – which decides where music belongs and how much room it gets. “With A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer, the conversations are guided by that emotional purpose. There are moments that invite a powerful musical expression and others where a restrained passage or silence can be more affecting,” he says. “For me, the balance is right when the music draws you further into the scene without making you conscious of how it is doing so.”
The director also has a say in how the songs are introduced, working alongside the producers and the music and marketing teams. His focus is on what each song reveals, which visuals frame it and what stays reserved for the cinema. “A song may be someone’s first introduction to our film, so it should communicate its emotion and spirit honestly,” Tiwari says. “At the same time, we want audiences to discover more when they encounter it within the story. Ideally, the release creates a connection, and the film gives that connection greater meaning.”
Looking ahead to the second installment, Malhotra says the first film has to give audiences an experience that stays with them, with their investment in the characters the strongest reason to return. “Music can carry that emotional connection between the two films. A song or a few notes of a theme can bring you straight back to a character, a feeling or a moment,” he says. “My hope is that people keep listening and that the music becomes part of their lives in that interval. Then, when they come back for the second film, they are returning to a world they already feel connected to.”
The soundtrack also sits at the heart of Amazon Music’s push into Indian film music. Indian-language music accounts for around 70% of what the service’s customers in India stream, and for more than two years the company has been building standalone launches for major film albums, both live and on the platform. It brought Hanumankind, Madhubanti Bagchi and Jasmine Sandlas together on one stage in Mumbai for “Dhurandhar,” whose songs then stayed in its 50 Most Played chart long after. It launched the “Border 2” album at the INS Kadamba naval base in Karwar, and staged similar events for “Param Sundari” and “Tere Ishk Mein.”
“Amazon Music is becoming the destination where India’s biggest film albums break,” says Rishabh Gupta, general manager of Amazon Music India. “Streaming services are becoming collaborators in culture, not just a place where music rests, and ‘Ramayana’ is the biggest example of that yet.”
For “Ramayana,” the streamer hosted an Oct. 21 celebration at the Chennai Trade Centre where Rahman performed songs from the film live, joined onstage by Kapoor, Pallavi and Yash. It is also rolling out a short-form series on Instagram and YouTube, including “Decoding Ramayana with A.R. Rahman,” and has built a dedicated destination for the album on the service, along with four new playlists named for characters from the epic. Because Amazon Music operates in more than 50 countries, each song goes live abroad at the same moment it does in India.
Gupta says listening data helps show which songs are landing and with whom, though decisions on what to release and when stay with the filmmakers and T-Series. “In many ways, the music is the film’s first trailer, and a song people love is the best invitation to the theater,” he says.
T-Series’ Bhushan Kumar describes the album as more than a conventional film soundtrack, one that carries the legacy of one of India’s most revered epics to audiences around the world. “With A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer coming together, we endeavor to honor its Indian roots while creating a distinctive musical experience that resonates with contemporary and international audiences,” he says. “Our partnership with Amazon Music further strengthens this vision by creating opportunities for focused discovery and connecting the soundtrack with listeners across markets. Ultimately, our aspiration is for the music to transcend the film and become part of a lasting cultural and emotional experience for generations to come.”
Amazon Music gauges a partnership by engagement over time rather than by launch week – whether listeners keep returning after release, and whether the album leads them to music they hadn’t played before. “For ‘Ramayana,’ the real success will be when the songs are still being played long after the film leaves theaters – at festivals, in family routines, and as a way into Indian music for listeners around the world,” Gupta says.
