It’s impossible to forget how a big a phenomenon RRR became just a few years ago. The Tollywood movie became a global success that reached much further than its Telugu audience. Not only did director S.S. Rajamouli’s film break all kinds of records for Indian cinema, but it also won the Oscar for Best Original Song. Now, Rajamouli is seeking to go even bigger with his next movie, Varanasi, and the first official look very impressive!
CinemaBlend had the chance to learn more about Rajamouli’s new film during a massive fan event in India, reportedly attended by around 40,000 to 50,000 people. This coincided with production on the film, which is currently being shot in Hyderabad. With that, we got to see the epic first look at Varanasi, starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Manash Babu, and the scale and excitement here is very palpable. India cinema is ready to go global in a big way with this one!
We were invited to attend the Globetrotter event, which has been a code name for Rajamouli’s new movie, though the official title was ultimately unveiled as Varanasi during the festivities. The event took place at an outdoor venue at Ramoji Film City, where the first teaser trailer was shown on a massive 100 by 132 foot screen. When addressing the huge and passionate crowd, Rajamouli declared the movie is being filmed for IMAX and showed an image in the 1.43:1 ratio. Check it:
We don’t know much about the plot of Varanasi yet, but you can watch the trailer yourself, considering it dropped shortly after the event. Take a look:
Varanasi has a grand, immersive quality about it, as the footage that opens with a montage of landscapes from various time periods showcases. The VFX are absolutely gorgeous and pristine, and it’s clear there’s some big world-building being created here. At the event itself, Indian fans went absolutely wild for the reveal of Mahesh Babu as a character named Rudhra, which was also shown first at the event.
Babu is thought of as the “Prince of Tollywood” and, man, did it show at the Globetrotter event. The crowd would go crazy for the actor every time he was mentioned or when a flash of his face came on the big screen. When Rajamouli and co-star Priyanka Chopra Jonas (who is also obviously one of India’s biggest names) spoke of the “superstar”, they only talked about him warmly and passionately. Chopra Jonas is not in the trailer, but a peek at her character was highlighted at the event. Here’s her very own poster:
During the event, a couple of other details were teased about the movie, including the villain. The antagonist’s name is Kumbha, and he’s set to be played by Prithviraj Sukumaran. With that, Sukumaran took to the stage prior to the trailer reveal to say Kumbha is “one of the most complex, physically challenging characters” he’s ever seen. The baddie’s own poster shows that he’s a wheelchair user with at least four electronic hands attached to it.
The film’s music was also showcased to some extent by Tollywood’s Shruti Haasan through an awesome song-and-dance performance. Additionally, there were a couple of other dance performances to provide audiences with an early taste of the film.
One piece of proof of the ambition of this event is that it took a couple of tries for the full trailer to be shown in all its greatness on the huge screen. As Rajamouli explained to fans after it didn’t deliver the first time around, he and his team decided not to test the footage prior to the event after a drone was caught trying to leak it early. (How wild is it that a trailer reveal event drew this much attention from fans?) After attending this event, I’m honestly not sure Hollywood has an equivalent to it. Such energy may only be found at concerts for stars like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.
Based on what we saw from the event, and the blisteringly high energy for Varanasi, it’s definitely a flick to watch out for. Rajamouli is thinking very big for his next project, and thinking for a global audience and, at this point, I think there’s a chance he could outdo RRR.