Rajamouli’s Epic 9,200-Year History Film Set in Varanasi

Right now, somewhere in Hyderabad, a 7,000-year-old city is under construction.

Not a CGI render. Not a green screen. A full-sized, physical replica of ancient Varanasi — built brick by brick, scaled down by about 30%, for S. S. Rajamouli’s next film.

And that’s just the set. The production has also taken its cameras to Odisha, Kenya, and — in a historic first — Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf, making Varanasi one of the most geographically ambitious shoots in Indian cinema history. It is, in fact, the first Indian film ever to shoot in Antarctica, and only the fourth film in the world to do so. The entire film has also been shot for IMAX — making it not just one of the most ambitious Indian productions ever, but the first non-English film in history to be shot entirely in the IMAX format. Every frame of that ambition will breathe at the scale it deserves.

But geography isn’t even the most staggering number attached to this project. That honour belongs to the budget: ₹1,400 crore — what The Indian Express has called “Indian cinema’s most expensive gamble ever.”

The Director Who Made the World Pay Attention

Before we get to what Rajamouli is building, it’s worth understanding why the world is watching him build it.

In 2022, a Telugu-language film called RRR did something that almost never happens: it crossed every language barrier, every cultural wall, and landed on global stages that Indian cinema had never reached before. Critics who had never watched a South Indian film were writing essays about it. Audiences who couldn’t read the subtitles fast enough were watching it twice.

Rajamouli didn’t stumble into that moment. He engineered it — through scale, emotion, and a filmmaker’s instinct for what makes people lean forward in their seats. RRR didn’t just perform well; it announced that Indian storytelling, told at full ambition, could compete with anything made anywhere in the world. The film’s global reach was further underscored in 2026, when Varanasi made its international debut at CCXP Mexico 2026 — following directly in RRR‘s record-breaking footsteps.

That’s the context behind every headline about Varanasi. When Rajamouli commits to a project, the question isn’t whether people will watch. The question is: how far is he willing to go this time?

The answer, apparently, is across multiple eras — spanning all the way from 7,200 BCE through to 2071, weaving through global catastrophes, asteroid threats, and a race to prevent civilisational collapse — following a man named Rudhra on a journey that spans continents and centuries. That’s a narrative canvas stretching across more than 9,200 years, making the film’s title only the beginning of its ambitions.

The Cast Carrying 9,200 Years on Their Shoulders

A story this vast needs a cast to match. Mahesh Babu leads the film as Rudhra — the man at the centre of this civilisational odyssey — in what is shaping up to be the defining role of his career. Opposite him, Priyanka Chopra brings her global star power to a production that is, by design, built for the world. And completing the central triangle, Prithviraj Sukumaran steps in as the antagonist, a force formidable enough to threaten the arc of human history itself.

The screenplay was crafted by Rajamouli himself, with the story developed by V. Vijayendra Prasad and S. S. Kanchi — the kind of collaborative foundation that has underpinned Rajamouli’s biggest successes. And holding the film’s emotional and sonic world together is M. M. Keeravani, the composer whose music for RRR became as globally celebrated as the film itself.

With a release date set for 7 April 2027, Varanasi is no longer just a rumour or a promise. It is a date on the calendar — and, if the ambition behind it is any measure, one of the most anticipated dates in Indian cinema history. The story also draws on the deep well of Hindu mythology, weaving in threads that stretch from the ancient to the apocalyptic, from the sacred ghats of Varanasi to the frozen silence of Antarctica.

Some films ask you to suspend disbelief. Varanasi is asking you to suspend your entire sense of scale.