The story of bahubali will soon enter the realm of the graphic novel and more.
Filmmaker S.S. Rajamouli’s epic fantasy Bahubali: The Beginning broke new ground in the genre of historical fiction last year with its breathtaking visuals and impactful storytelling. But there is lot more to the world of Bahubali than was revealed in the first film, says the director who is gearing up to launch a slew of content related to the franchise across platforms such as graphic shorts, comics and video games.
The project, which is being done in partnership with Graphic India and Arka Media Works (who crafted the visuals of Bahubali), aims to bring the franchise to the world of animation, thereby expanding its reach to new audiences, as a warm up to the release of Bahubali 2.
But this project is far from just a promotional gimmick for the sequel, Rajamouli says, adding that his aims are a lot bigger. “When we started with Bahubali, we knew that we had a very big project before us, something that had never been done before. But Bahubali is not just the VFX or just the story. It is about the details of each character, the history of each place we’ve shown and basically every detail of the world we were trying to create. We knew that through the film, we’d be able to show a small glimpse of that world. We needed many more windows to unravel it. So the idea of taking it to other mediums like comics and video games was always there.”
Drawing a parallel between team Bahubali and other international franchises of the kind, Graphic India’s Sharad Devarajan says, “The main thing that impressed me the most about Bahubali was the amount of world building that Rajamouli had done for the story. And that is essentially what constitutes a great story. Take the case of Star Wars for instance, where for 20 years there was no film in the franchise but people were still connected with it because of the peripherals. These efforts are not a gimmick for us. It’s not like a flash in the pan, but rather, we want to create an immersion for fans into this world.”
It remains to be seen whether or not the trans-media content is able to answer all the queries fans were left with after the first film. Rajamouli adds, “As for the biggest question that fans have, that answer they’ll only come to once the sequel actually releases. But the content that is being created will give a lot more detailed picture of the world, such as the journey of the characters and their back-story things fans always find interesting.”
While the news of Bahubali entering the world of comics has created a stir among fans of the franchise, the filmmaker himself adds that this is indeed just the start of the journey for Bahubali. We ask him if he has thoughts of taking the story on TV or make more films in the future. “Anything is possible,” Rajamouli says. “But the one thing that is for certain is that the world of Bahubali will never end. The franchise and the world will stay alive no matter what.”