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Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.
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2026 has been delivering fantasy on a truly epic scale in theaters. Most recently, LAIKA's new stop-motion adaptation, Wildwood, has been hailed by critics and audiences alike for its painstaking, handmade recreation of the vibrant world in Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis' novel of the same name. Before that, the film of the summer was undoubtedly Christopher Nolan's blockbuster take on Homer's The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon as the mythological hero Odysseus, which earned a staggering global haul of over $1.8 billion. Now, as the year draws to a close, India has unleashed one of its most ambitious cinematic efforts ever, Ramayana, which similarly pulls from a legendary Hindu poem to bring myth to life.
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Directed by Nitesh Tiwari from a script he co-wrote with Shridhar Raghavan, Ramayana: Rise of a Legend is the first half of a nearly $430 million epic adaptation of the tale of the same name originally told by Valmiki. It retells the younger years of Prince Ram (Ranbir Kapoor), the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu, who is chosen to help humanity fight back against the all-powerful King Ravana (Yash).
First, however, after marrying Princess Sita (Sai Pallavi) and being exiled from his home, he's sent on a fateful journey that will explore the couple's "love, duty, and destiny" before the coming battle. With the film's own journey just beginning in theaters, Collider can exclusively share a new sneak peek that outlines Ram's destiny to become one of history's greatest warriors in all the realms.
The footage sees Ram's father, Dasharatha (Arun Govil), approaching the great sage Vishvamitra (Ajinkya Deo) and offering his army to his cause. He has no need for an entire military, though. A single warrior, Ram, will suffice for reasons the king does not yet understand. Though he may not seem like the type of towering presence that could win a fight by himself, the sage sees him for something much more as the footage cuts from their conversation to a breathtaking scene in which the young prince shows off his otherworldly skills with a bow. Vishvamitra has a vision of him becoming not just a warrior of legend, but a model for the people who would gladly lay down his life for them. It serves to build up the epic of Ram, and he ultimately can be by the time the final chapter of the story is in the books.
COLLIDER
Collider · Quiz
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.
💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)
👒Grand Line(One Piece)
🐺The Continent(The Witcher)
🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)
FIND YOUR WORLD →
QUESTION 1 / 8THE POWER
01
What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.
ASomething ancient and half forgotten that came down through my family. BSomething completely ridiculous that works in a fight and gets a laugh. CNo magic at all, just training, potions and a very sharp sword. DSomething I inherited from a parent I have barely met.
NEXT QUESTION →
QUESTION 2 / 8THE COMPANY
02
Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.
AA fellowship drawn from every corner of the world who barely trust each other. BA crew I picked up one at a time, all of whom would die for me. CTwo or three people I would never describe out loud as friends. DTwo mates from school who are exactly as out of their depth as I am.
NEXT QUESTION →
QUESTION 3 / 8THE HOME
03
Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.
AA high city of white stone with the sea somewhere far below. BA ship under sail, with an island ahead that nobody has mapped. CA rented room over a tavern, in a town I am leaving in the morning. DA cabin at a summer camp with everybody else already awake outside.
NEXT QUESTION →
QUESTION 4 / 8THE LIVING
04
How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.
AI am not, because somebody far older than me decided this was my duty. BTreasure, and I am not always careful about whose it used to be. CI take contracts, since people will pay well for what they will not touch. DI am fifteen and this is all technically a school trip.
NEXT QUESTION →
QUESTION 5 / 8THE MONSTER
05
There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.
ASend word to somebody who has seen this before, then hold the line. BWalk straight in, because it is interesting and possibly edible. CAsk what it has been eating and what the village is willing to pay. DWork out which myth it escaped from, then improvise very badly.
NEXT QUESTION →
QUESTION 6 / 8THE ENEMY
06
Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.
AAn ancient evil that has been patient for several thousand years. BA government that has spent a long time calling itself the good guys. CA man who turns out to be far worse than anything I hunt for money. DA god, or possibly my own family, and quite likely both at once.
NEXT QUESTION →
QUESTION 7 / 8THE CREED
07
What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.
ASome things are worth defending even when the odds are hopeless. BNobody gets to tell me where I can go or what I am allowed to want. CPick the lesser evil, and never pretend afterwards that it was not evil. DMy friends come before anything a prophecy has to say about it.
NEXT QUESTION →
QUESTION 8 / 8THE LEGEND
08
A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.
AIn a song, in a language hardly anybody still speaks. BAs the one who got there first and proved the whole thing was possible. CBarely, and mostly wrongly, in ballads I would absolutely hate. DOn a plaque at a camp, read by kids about to do the same thing.
REVEAL MY WORLD →
The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.
Middle-earth
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.
The Grand Line
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.
One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.
The Continent
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.
Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.
Camp Half-Blood
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.
Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
'Ramayana' Is the Biggest Blockbuster Epic to Come Out of India Yet
India has enjoyed an increasing presence on the global cinematic stage, thanks to blockbusters like Baahubali and the Oscar-nominated RRR. Ramayana, however, is a different beast. Between the two films that will make up the duology, it easily marks both the most expensive Indian film and the most expensive non-English feature ever made. The team went to great lengths not just to accurately depict the towering figures of Hindu mythology at the epic's center, but to bring in some big talent to create an epic worthy of the original poem, down to landing legendary composer Hans Zimmer for his debut Indian production. Critics have thus far given it a 74% score on Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences are falling in love with the spectacle, rating it a Certified Fresh 94%.
In addition to the names mentioned above, Ramayana boasts the talents of Ravi Dubey, Anupam Kher, Kajal Aggarwal, Rakul Preet Singh, Vivek Oberoi, Kunal Kapoor, Adinath Kothare, and more among its massive ensemble. Kapoor, who has appeared in massive hits this decade like the fantastical Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva and the actioner Animal, called the massive undertaking "nothing less than Lord of the Rings" when speaking to Collider's Steve Weintraub. He sees it as an opportunity to share one of India's greatest stories with the world in a package full of action, heart, and emotion capable of rivaling any of the great fantasy franchises U.S. audiences know and love.
"Well, it is the greatest epic to come from my country, India. Apart from the entertainment and every emotion that it will give you, there are a lot of life lessons that you can take from a film like Ramayana and the characters. I'm extremely excited that the West, the entire world, and the entire global audience will get to sample this story."
Ramayana is now in theaters. Check out our exclusive sneak peek in the player above. Stay tuned at Collider for more.
Release Date
November 5, 2026
Runtime
166 Minutes
Director
Nitesh Tiwari
Cast
Ranbir Kapoor
Rama
Sai Pallavi
Sita
Ravi Dubey
Lakshmana
Yash
Ravana
Writers
Shridhar Raghavan, Nitesh Tiwari
Producers
Namit Malhotra
