An official announcement on India’s biggest ever motion picture, ‘The Mahabharata’, to be made with a budget of Rs 1,000 crore, has come out and it’s not from ace Telugu film director SS Rajamouli.
The magnum opus will be directed by noted ad filmmaker V A Shrikumar Menon. Dr B R Shetty, a UAE-based Indian billionaire will be investing Rs 1,000 crore (USD 150 million) to produce this epic project in two parts. The shooting is scheduled to commence by September 2018 with the aim of releasing the first part in early 2020. The second part will be released 90 days after first part’s release.
Read : Rajamouli Mahabharata proposal
Some of the biggest actors from Indian cinema and Hollywood will reportedly be roped in. Malayalam superstar Mohanlal is likely to play the character of Bhima, the second of Pandavas. The film will be based on ‘Randamoozham’, a book on Mahabharata. It narrates the epic story through the eyes of Bhima. M T Vasudevan Nair, the Jnanpeeth Award winning novelist, writer of Randamoozham and the four-time National Award winner in the Best Screenplay category, has penned the screenplay for this Rs 1000 crore epic.
The film will be shot primarily in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu and will be dubbed into other major Indian and foreign languages. Renowned technicians from the world cinema including some Academy Award winners will be brought on board to make the film on par with landmark international films like ‘Lord of the Rings’.
