In the three days before Ramayana opened, it got a dynamic anti-piracy injunction out of the Bombay High Court, kept a rival producer legally barred from making a competing Ramayana or Hanuman film until Diwali 2027, and had a Hollywood tentpole pushed out of its IMAX screens by a fortnight.
None of those three things is unusual on its own. Together they are a fairly complete picture of how a film of this size is actually assembled, and almost none of it is about the film.
One: the injunction
On 2 November, Justice Madhav Jamdar granted a dynamic ad-interim injunction in Godpower Media Private Limited v John Does and Others, reported by MediaNama and LawChakra. Godpower claims the Indian and other territorial rights to the film.
The order restrains unnamed John Doe defendants and digital platforms from recording, uploading, hosting, streaming or communicating the film. The operative part is what comes next: Godpower can notify infringing URLs in writing, and internet service providers and social media intermediaries must then block or take them down, including mirror sites, without anyone going back to court. Counsel for Google and other global intermediaries recorded no objection. Next listed 16 December.
The Court’s reasoning, in a line: “Prima facie, the plaintiff has real and well-founded apprehension that the film or parts of it will be recorded.”
That is a reasonable apprehension. We watched HDTC prints of Drishyam circulate within days of release last month. But note what a dynamic injunction is: a standing takedown pipe operated by the rights holder, with the court’s authority attached and no further judicial check on individual URLs. Nobody has yet tested what happens when a notice under one of these catches a review, a reaction video or a critical clip. A Delhi judge wrote exactly that carve-out into a personality rights order last week, but no such line exists here.
Two: the covenant
This is the one nobody is covering and it is the most interesting of the three.
On 3 November, Justice Amit Borkar refused Phantom Studios India both of its prayers in Commercial Arbitration Petition (L) No. 16884 of 2026, per LiveLawBiz. Phantom wanted to be released from Clause 5 negative covenants in an assignment agreement of 19 April 2024, which bar it from producing or exploiting Ramayana-based films, including Hanuman-based films, until Diwali 2027. It also wanted disclosure of payments made and payable. Both refused.
The Court’s reasoning is a short course in contract discipline. Phantom is separately named in the relevant sub-clauses, so the restriction does not fall away just because the counterparty’s entity stopped holding Phantom shares. No signed written amendment was produced and the alleged oral assurance was not established. And a breach by one party does not discharge another party’s obligation. “Each party has accepted its own obligation under that clause.”
So for the next year, a production house that was once inside this project cannot make a film from the same mythology, down to the Hanuman spin-off. The merits go to arbitration; this was interim relief only.
Worth noting that this is Phantom’s second loss in three weeks. In mid-October the same court refused it an injunction against JioStar over Queen Forever. We covered that one. One studio, two Bombay judges, two refusals, both turning on documents it signed.
Three: the IMAX screens
Godzilla Minus Zero was due in India on 6 November. It now arrives on 20 November. The North American date has not moved. Sacnilk reported the change on 3 November and attributes it to Ramayana having secured a two-week IMAX exclusivity window in India. PVR INOX Pictures distributes Godzilla here with TOHO.
The exclusivity claim traces to a single unnamed trade source in a Bollywood Hungama scoop of 28 October, which quoted it as: “Ramayana is a local film and has a two-week exclusivity window on IMAX screens in India.” We are reporting it as reported. The date change is described as official; the stated reason for it is not.
The supporting evidence is in the booking data. Ramayana is holding 755 IMAX 3D shows at fifty-three percent occupancy, generating about ₹13.57 crore of advance, which is twelve percent of its India pre-sales off under one percent of its shows. IMAX is the most valuable real estate in Indian exhibition and this film has it to itself.
The knock-on, per the same scoop: The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping also lands on 20 November, so three IMAX films will be fighting over the same screens in the third week of the month.
Bengaluru Baath Take
We have spent a month writing about courts handing out broad orders to well-resourced plaintiffs against defendants who do not appear. This is the same machinery working in a commercial register rather than a reputational one, and it is worth being precise about which parts are legitimate.
The anti-piracy injunction is legitimate. Camcorded prints are a real theft from a real investment and 72-hour takedowns are the only remedy that moves at the speed of the harm. The only thing we would watch is the absence of any check on what a notice sweeps up.
The covenant is also legitimate, and it is a useful lesson for every Indian producer who still does deals on a term sheet and a handshake. Phantom lost because the agreement said what it said and the oral assurance was not in writing. That is the correct outcome and it is the second time this month a Bombay judge has told the film industry that friendly conduct does not amend a contract.
The IMAX exclusivity is the one to argue about. A two-week lock on the country’s premium screens for one domestic release, which pushes a Hollywood film two weeks downstream, is not a court order or a regulation. It is a commercial arrangement between a producer, a distributor and an exhibitor, invisible to the public, that determines what the largest screens in India are permitted to show. Nobody has confirmed it on the record. Nobody has to.
Three orders, one booking arrangement, and a path cleared. The film still has to be good.
