The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Prabhas, and Deepika Padukone in key roles and has turned out to be a money-spinner box office hit, especially at a time when other big-budget films have not done well.
Mumbai: “Kalki 2898 AD” has been praised for combining elements from the Mahabharata with sci-fi. Director Nag Ashwin, who already has a sequel in the works, is confident that Indian mythological stories, if told correctly, can match the complexity of Western superhero movies.
The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Prabhas, and Deepika Padukone in key roles and has turned out to be a money-spinner box office hit, especially at a time when other big-budget films have not done well.
When asked if “Kalki 2898 AD” is India’s answer to Marvel and DC superhero movies, in a interview with PTI, Director Nag Ashwin said, “I don’t know if it is an answer or not, but we definitely have the kind of stories, depth, complexity, and heroism that any Marvel or DC movie has. We just have to delve into it and tell it in the correct way. If we tell it in a way that the current generation is used to, maybe mix it with sci-fi, I feel that would be the correct way. And that’s actually worked out because people now feel that it is our story.”
The story is set in the future dystopian city of Kashi (Varanasi) and revolves around Bachchan’s immortal warrior Ashwathhama, who is trying to protect the next avatar of Lord Vishnu, carried by Deepika Padukone’s character Sumathi. Prabhas’ character Bhairava, a bounty hunter, is sent to find her by Haasan’s antagonist, Supreme Yaskin.
Ashwin said the sequel to “Kalki 2898 AD” is already in the works. It will continue the story, which looks both familiar and fresh. “They have seen these familiar tropes in ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel films but it is still in Kashi. It still has an auto on the streets. It feels like all the worlds have come together, you don’t want to feel derivative, you don’t want to feel like it’s Blade Runner. It should look like Kashi, not Tokyo.”
Some of the film’s visuals have been compared to recent Hollywood futuristic spectacles like “Mad Max” or “Dune.” However, Ashwin said there is nothing common between his film and these Hollywood movies other than the desert visuals. “I love ‘Star Wars.’ There must be something subconscious there. Other movies do not have so much except for the fact that we have desert in our film and there is also desert in ‘Dune’ and ‘Mad Max.’ Apart from that, it has nothing to do with the story, technology, or design. Having the funny robot sidekick (Bhairava’s AI car Bujji) is probably a ‘Star Wars’ thing. Maybe ageing the vehicles to make them look rusty was also an aesthetic from there.”
The film’s box office success, having crossed the Rs 700 crore mark globally, has come with “relief and gratitude” as the team gave a lot to it for many years, said Ashwin, who has lived with the story for more than five years.
Like any other child growing up in the country, the director said he too was familiar with the characters of Mahabharata through books and the famous 1988 TV serial, but he read the book in its entirety when he started working on the movie. Ashwin said the epic is better than “our best stories” as even the weakest characters have a strong backstory and depth. “I always wanted to reimagine it for our generation and also keep the simplicity intact. For example, these guys are not wearing any crowns. It is a small thing, but I found it would be impractical to wear a crown when you go to war. The armor is also designed differently.”
The idea behind making the story was to evoke “a sense of wonder” that he felt as a child when he was first introduced to the stories, said the director, who has previously directed the National Award-winner “Mahanati.” “If I watched it as a kid, I would have so many questions about the vehicles and other things. I just wanted to make it for this generation.”
Asked if the anger inherent in Bachchan’s character was a homage to the ‘Angry Young Man’ characters the actor played in the 70s, Ashwin said it must have come subconsciously. “But Ashwathhama was known to have a short temper and he was a fierce warrior. These things just came together, and Bachchan sir was perfect for the role.”
Bachchan sir was the first in the cast to hear the narration of the story, and the megastar had many questions. “I think he was the first one I actually narrated the script to in a raw and primary shape. He fully understood what it was, but he was not sure how we would pull it off. He said, ‘You are showing me all these things and pictures but how are you going to do this? How is it possible?’ So, it took a few times for him to have faith.”
Haasan also took some convincing to play Supreme Yaskin. “We went back and forth a few times. By the time we spoke to Kamal sir, we had already shot a bit of the film… Kamal sir is always up for something new and challenging. So, we had multiple narrations just to be sure. He is the antagonist, so he just had to be sure that we knew what we were doing,” Ashwin said.
“Kalki 2898 AD,” made on a reported budget of Rs 600 crore, was a difficult film to pull off as the script alone went through 11-12 drafts and took one year. “It was a hard film to make and a hard film to write. Forget the actors, when you have so many characters, world-building, and whatnot, and you try to squeeze that into one feature film, then it’s always a difficult screenplay to write.”
Produced by Vyjayanthi Movies, the film released in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, and English on June 27.