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Has the

Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt starrer Brahmāstra been the worst hit by the pandemic?

Director Ayan Mukerji and producer Karan Johar’s ambitious venture Brahmāstra has been plodding on for more than three years due to production and post-production delays. And now with coronavirus restrictions, the film has been indefinitely stuck. Sumita Chakraborty investigates why this ambitious venture – the part one of a trilogy has been stuck for so long. Read on…

Announced with a lot of fanfare – the title logo of the film was revealed on March 4, 2019 and on the same evening; the logo of the film was launched on Maha Shivratri at the Kumbh Mela. In first of its kind, 150 drones were used to light up the skies to form the logo. Furthermore, a video of the launch of the logo at Kumbh Mela 2019 was released by Fox Star Hindi the very next day. On March 6, 2019, the official logo of the film was released in Telugu and Tamil by Baahubali director SS Rajamouli and Tamil actor Dhanush. Indeed, it was a spectacular and expensively sensational launch which no film in the history of Bollywood has ever had or seen. And, why not? Said to be a part of an ambitious trilogy, the launch of this fantasy meets mythology and adventure film was sheer magic. No wonder, this film was touted as one of the biggest and most expensive ever in the film industry. So obviously, an ambitious venture with an amazing ensemble cast like this would indeed be a treat for the audience.

Fantasy Meets Adventure

Yes, we are talking about Ayan Mukerji’s super ambitious action-adventure Brahmāstra, pro-

duced by Dharma Production and Fox Star Studio, which included an exciting multi-starrer cast with Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Nagarjuna Akkineni, Mouni Roy and Shahrukh Khan in an extended cameo - all part of the first part of the trilogy. The film would release in several languages that is Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam. It was initially announced for an August 15 2019 release but then supposedly according to sources, the hightech VFX work delayed things and KJo’s Dharma Production decided to push it for a Christmas release. But after that, the film’s release has been changed several times.

A Grand Venture

An excited Karan Johar tweeted about the film way back in 2017. The preparation of the film started in January 2018 and supposedly according to Ranbir Kapoor, director Ayan Mukerji “spent six years of his life working really hard to make an original story.” It would be something like a “romantic-fairytale in a supernatural format” and “the film is not something which doesn’t have truth to it, or which is unbelievable,” said Ranbir. He further revealed the entire trilogy would be made within the span of 10 years.

Groundwork

At first, the film’s title was rumoured to be Dragon but was later confirmed as Brahmāstra. Director Ayan Mukerji explained that the title Brahmāstra “resonates with the ancient wisdom, energies and power.” However, he insisted that it would be a “contemporary film with ancient elements.” Ranbir’s character in the film at first supposedly, was inspired by eminent philosopher and Islamic scholar Rumi’s work but later they scrapped the idea, and Ranbir Kapoor got a hair cut instead.

So It Started

It all sounded rather spectacular and the audience waited with bated breath for the film’s release but that was just not forthcoming. News filtered in about the shooting in Bulgaria, New York, Manali and so many other places and pictures of the lead pair Ranbir and Alia flooded the social media thereby accelerating the excitement for the fans. The principal photography began in Bulgaria in February 2018 and then the shoot started in full force to make it for the August 15, 2019 deadline. However, the complicated VFX scenes delayed matters and

the producer and director delayed the release further till December, 2019 citing that the shooting was incomplete. In fact, Alia Bhatt at a press conference was asked why the movie was delayed so much and she said at that point that “good things take time”. Fair enough!

Coronovirus Attack!

2020, the horrific pandemic hit the entire world but obviously, all the film shootings were stalled – Brahmāstra too was part of the films stalled. However, this time the film was delayed because of unexpected circumstances and not because of any production woes. Supposedly, Ayan Mukerji and Ranbir Kapoor decided to make Covid safety norms as their priority. So in the wake of increasing cases in the country, they do not want to put the team at any risk and so postponed the remaining shoot. When the government lifted the lockdown, unfortunately Ranbir Kapoor tested positive and was quarantined in his home. The shoot was delayed even further. Alai Bhatt too tested positive for the virus so again the shoot was postponed for a later date. Just when everything was fine with both the lead actors well and ready for shooting, the second wave of the pandemic grabbed the world by its throat. It was fiercer and had more fatalities so obviously all film shootings stopped yet again – a directive given by the State government.

Result!

With the lockdown easing recently, the business of entertainment slowly got back to its feet. However, the first part of the Brahmāstra trilogy had now been delayed for three years. According to a source, the shoot this time was however almost complete and so was most of the post production done. In fact, South actor Nagarjuna recently even took to his social media handle to say his part in the film was now complete. But the theatres were still shut and we heard rumours that producer Karan Johar was not very keen on releasing the film on the OTT platform. Supposedly Disney+Hotstar had even asked the other producer for the film Fox Star Studios if they could drop the film on their streaming platform thereby bypassing theatrical release. But unfortunately, there’s no confirmation of this from any of the sources.

What Now?

Will Brahmāstra release this year? Again there’s no confirmation from any of the producers but that too is understandable because of the uncertainty of things right now. Ayan, Ranbir and Alia too are now mum on the subject so everybody is still at sea on what is happening to Brahmāstra’s release. …Brahmāstra sounds absolutely spectacular and very different from the Bollywood films we are used to, so we hope and pray this film gets released and we all get a chance to watch this fantasy-adventure, action packed drama, the first part of this ambitious trilogy.