Filmmaker Ayan Mukerji’s upcoming magnum opus ‘Brahmastra Part One: Shiva,’ is now moving towards the finishing line after years in the making.
The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Nagarjuna Akkineni and Mouni Roy.
Based on Indian mythology, the film is set in contemporary India, where a secret society called the Brahmansh has guarded ‘Astras’ or weapons created in ancient India for generations. The most powerful among these, the Brahmastra, is now waking up and it threatens to destroy the universe, reports Variety.
Constructed as a trilogy, which is part of an ‘Astraverse’ created by Mukerji, the first part follows the protagonist Shiva (Kapoor), who is in love with Isha (Bhatt). Their lives are changed forever when Shiva learns that he has a mysterious connection to the ‘Brahmastra’ and a great power within him that he doesn’t understand just yet — the power of fire.
“It’s deep rooted in Indian culture, and we had the opportunity to create our own Marvel, which Ayan is trying to do with his Astraverse,” Kapoor told Variety. “Any film, any good compelling story, made in your culture, in an authentic way, in a true form, will connect to a large audience.”
Speaking about how the project came about, Kapoor continued: “We were just three best friends, Alia and I, sitting and dreaming this film with Ayan, and being soldiers to him. We were really excited and really privileged to be part of this film and part of this vision so selfishly as an actor that I would do it over and over again.”
Kapoor will get to do it at least twice again in the remaining two parts of the ‘Brahmastra’ trilogy.
“‘Brahmastra’ is not an end in itself, but it’s a means to a larger end. We have part two and part three ahead of us, we have the potential to really take the storytelling in many diverse directions even beyond ‘Brahmastra,’ and there is no way to do it at the scale at which I hope to do it, unless our audience base does not increase. So that’s definitely part of the ambition,” Mukerji told Variety.
“Let’s start with some strong baby steps with part one. I think we’ve gotten far enough with this with having, over time, gotten Disney to lay their attention on the film, help us to push the release a little wider, and I’m hoping that can bring in bigger and wider returns for us.”
The benchmarks for Indian action films this year have been set by ‘K.G.F: Chapter 2’ which collected $161 million and ‘RRR’, which has grossed $155 million so far. The latter is directed by SS Rajamouli, also known for the ‘Baahubali’ franchise. Rajamouli is presenting the Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam language versions of ‘Brahmastra’ which will also release in its original Hindi language.
“Certainly, with all humility, definitely, I think our ambition is larger than that (‘RRR’) number overseas. And I hope that, as a key step with Disney coming on board, just our overseas distribution before it even crosses over to the western audience, I hope it’s able to reach the subcontinent audience in the western world in a much wider fashion, so that we can actually see that return on box office numbers,” says Mukerji.
