'Hanu-Man' director Prasanth Varma: Used VFX to elevate the experience

A still from Hanu-Man

With its worldwide gross income breaching the R150 crore mark, Prasanth Varma's mythological superhero film Hanu-Man (Telugu), starring Teja Sajja, Amritha Iyer and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, has proved to be a dark horse. The director, who mounted the production on a limited budget of R40 crores, vouches for the power of VFX when highlighting how technology enhanced it.

"We used VFX only when it was required to elevate the experience, because the focus was on evoking the right emotions. We planned the shoot such that the film appeared to be driven by VFX, even though that's not the case," says Varma, further addressing speculation on whether Chiranjeevi played a cameo as Hanuman in the movie. "I couldn't find the courage to ask Chiru sir to do so. Hence, I used VFX. I have modelled the eyes of Hanuman ji on Chiru sir's face."

Prasanth Varma

Varma admits that he finds the reception to his film rather surreal. "Our initial opinion was that if we only recovered the money that was invested in the film, we'd have the chance to make one more film with that amount," he laughs, and adds, "Now that the film has done well, we plan to make a Prasanth Varma Cinematic Universe - one of our own desi superheroes; those deeply rooted in our culture."

His next edition, he reveals, will be titled Jai Hanuman. "There will be interesting characters who will lead every story, including Indradev, and Parushuramji. Each main character of Indian history and mythology [will be presented to] the current generation. In this universe, Hanuman is from Andhra Pradesh, and the other superheroes will be from places like Kerala, Meghalaya, and Kolkata. The idea is to bring different superheroes from different languages and places, and yet, it will be dubbed in Telugu."

As many as 20 scripts, he shares, are currently being written for this endeavour. "As we want to showcase six superheroes in phase one, their stories are ready. They are part of a parallel universe called Akhanda Bharat. The stories for Jai Hanuman and two more films are ready. We can start three films at the same time, with three different directors and technicians. We want to give opportunity to new talent."

Varma's film managed to set the cash registers ringing, even though he claims he got less than a 10 per cent-share of seat allotment in theatres, given that the film clashed with Mahesh Babu's Guntur Karam. "That was heart-breaking. But we were always confident about the film."