Sony Pictures has released the English trailer of Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Part 1 for international audiences. Along with the scale of the film and its visual effects, the trailer has drawn attention for the way the English dialogue appears to match the actors’ lip movements.
Producer Namit Malhotra has now explained the process behind the English version. Speaking to ET Now, he said the work was designed to make the dubbed version feel more natural for a theatrical audience, while keeping the actors’ performances at the centre of the process.
How the English version was made
The English version of Ramayana: Part 1 does not follow the usual dubbing method where a translated voice track is simply added over the original footage. According to Malhotra, the team used DNEG’s AI-powered lip-sync technology to digitally adjust the mouth movements of the actors so that they match the English dialogue more closely.
Malhotra made it clear that the process started with human performances. Voice actors were brought in to perform the English dialogue, and some members of the principal cast also recorded their own English lines. He said this first step was important because the emotional tone of the scenes had to come from performers, not from software.
Ranbir Kapoor, who plays Lord Ram, Yash, who plays Ravana, and Sai Pallavi, who plays Sita, have dubbed their own voices in English for the version shown in the trailer. The source material also states that human voice actors were used where required.
DNEG’s AI tool came at the final stage
Malhotra said the next part of the work focused on the movement of the lips. Human artists first created the base for how the characters’ mouths should move in relation to the English voice performances. He described this as a human-led step where the movement was mapped before the technology was applied.
The challenge, according to him, was larger than matching a voice to a face. The team had to make sure the selected voice, the actor’s facial appearance and the lip movements looked convincing together on screen. He also noted that the best voice actor may not always have facial movements that suit the actor seen in the shot, so the team had to account for that while building the lip-sync layer.
After these stages, DNEG used a specially developed technology tool that uses AI to place the adjusted lip movements into the actor’s face. Malhotra said the aim was to create the feeling that the characters were speaking English with the same emotion as the original performance.
He also said the technology was made for cinema-quality presentation. In his explanation, he separated this work from simpler tools that can create quick multilingual videos for phones, saying a theatrical film needs a higher level of detail.
What the trailer shows
The English trailer runs for just under four minutes and gives viewers a look at the central conflict of Ramayana: Part 1. It opens with the rise of Ravana and then moves to Lord Ram’s 14-year exile with Sita and Lakshman. Ravie Dubey plays Lakshman in the film.
The trailer also features Rakul Preet Singh as Shurpanakha. It then moves into Sita’s abduction and Ram’s vow to face Ravana. The English version is aimed at viewers outside the Hindi-speaking audience, with the lip-sync work meant to reduce the disconnect that can happen in traditional dubbed versions.
Ramayana: Part 1 is scheduled for a worldwide theatrical release on November 6, 2026, ahead of the Diwali weekend. The English trailer confirms the date for the film’s global rollout.
Source: Bollywood Hungama.