'It was Rajamouli Sir’s idea to divide Bahubali- The Eternal War in 2 parts': Ishan Shukla

It has been over 10 years since the release of SS Rajamouli and Prabhas’s Baahubali: The Beginning and since then the film and the franchise has become part of everybody’s life. And with the release of Baahibali- The Epic, the interest in the series has been renewed to a new level. To take the story ahead, producer Shobu Yarlagadda and SS Rajamouli are now adding a new dimension. The team is now coming up with its first animation film for the franchise, a glimpse of it was given with the release of The Epic. The animation film has been titled as Baahubali- The Epic War and will be directed by Ishan Shukla.

In an exclusive conversation with ETtimes, Shukla revealed that the collaboration began almost by serendipity. “It was a twofold thing,” he said. “Shobu was kind of impressed by what I had been doing in the independent animation space. At that time, my Schirkoa feature was doing the festival circuit all over the world, and my episode of Star Wars: Visions had just been released. There was a bit of buzz around both projects, and I think Shobu connected the dots that both were done by the same guy.”


That connection led to an unexpected meeting between Ishan and Shobu. “So we had a meeting, he didn’t have any project in mind. But he was coming up with this animation studio in Hyderabad. They were planning few animation projects and Baahubali was something they wanted to explore more. And they’re planning some animation projects. “

Shukla recalls taking time to reflect before responding. “I had like 2-3 ideas which I was floating around. Now I’ve seen Baahubali films many times before, but I think my only connection to it was how impressive the emotions and actions were in it.”

His childhood love for Amar Chitra Katha became the bridge that led him to a new idea. “But then when it comes to these films, I’m just somebody who has just read too many Amar Chitra Katha when I was young, my father used to read me hundreds and hundreds of them. So somewhere I thought there could be an idea because if I have to justify the use of animation in Baahubali, there has to be a pretty good reason to animate it. Otherwise, we can just do a live action sequel.”

The breakthrough moment came when he asked himself what only animation could do. “So just thinking about Amar Chitra Katha and just thinking about Baahubali, the natural extension, I thought, oh, why don’t we just talk about the afterlife? Because afterlife is something far more interesting in Indian epics. It’s just vast. Baahubali is really, really vast. We can really travel to different dimensions. We can talk about physics and whatnot.”

Despite his doubts about the boldness of the idea, Shukla decided to take a leap. “I honestly thought it was too wild of an idea.But I did create concept art and some story ideas and shared it with Shobu. Shobu shared it with Rajamouli sir. And I got a call back within like five, six days that this is really interesting. Let’s meet again.”

From there, the project began taking shape. “And from there, they both were very excited about it because they thought this just feels right. And for me, it was definitely more exciting because I always wanted to do something in the cosmology state. And I also wanted to make sure that I justify the use of animation. Now, when we are talking about, you know, Patal Loka and whatever you have seen, we can really go big and epic and it will all make sense.”

Shukla also met with S.S. Rajamouli to discuss the story in depth. “Yeah, we had good chats about the story. So when I pitched the story that he wanted to meet and I had like a30-page story written. And then Rajamouli sir gave his inputs on it. He was the one who said that this story is too big. And you should divide it into two films. Because I had proposed one story idea, which was like the full story, which you will see in two parts now. Because it was something which you cannot contain in a single film.”

The writing process evolved collaboratively. “And then Soumya Sharma joined me and wrote the final draft of the story which then went to Scott Mosier.”