Hong Kong — Setting a rare record in the Indian film industry, Dr. Bavaguthu Raguram Shetty is investing US$150 million to produce India’s biggest ever motion picture, Mahabharata. Directed by noted advertising film maker V.A Shrikumar Menon, Mahabharata will be produced in two parts for release in early 2020.
The founder of Abu Dhabi based NMC Healthcare, Chairman of UAE Exchange, and a well-known philanthropist, Dr B.R. Shetty is a keen supporter of Indian arts and culture. By backing Mahabharata, Dr Shetty will join the league of visionary producers such as Richard Attenborough who backed the biopic Gandhi that went on to become a global hit.
“I am confident that this film will be adapted in over 100 languages and reach over three billion people. Importantly, I am awestruck by the fantastic screenplay by Sri. MT and I have tremendous faith in the ability of V.A. Shrikumar to paint this narrative because his passion and energy are boundless”.
The ancient Sanskrit epic of Mahabharata has been a topic of creative adaptation in different formats for many decades. There have also been efforts to render it, but the success of these has been limited to the stage or serialization for television audiences. Hence, this project will be the first of its kind to take the epic which has engaged generations of audiences on the silver screen at such a grand level.
It remains almost impossible to narrate Mahabharata in the big screen except by way of adaptation of M. T. Vasudevan Nair’s Jnanpeeth Award winning novel Randamoozham. The novel narrates Mahabharata through the eyes of Bhima, the second of the Pandavas. The screenplay is written by the writer himself who has won awards for screenwriting in Indian cinema.
The film will be shot primarily in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu and will be dubbed into major Indian and foreign languages. The film will have an identity across continents as the cast and crew will be the coming together of the crème de la crème of Indian, Hollywood and global cinema and include some of the greatest names including some academy winners.