Ramayana producer Namit Malhotra said many in India ask why they are making another adaptation. He compared the film to Avatar and The Odyssey, noting its massive scale. "We're making it because we want to show you the version of this story that you've never seen," he told PTI.
Ramayana producer Namit Malhotra has admitted that many in India are wondering what the need is for another adaptation of the epic. The filmmaker has talked about the film's scale and ambition, saying it tells its story on a scale never seen before.
Namit Malhotra on Ramayana's scale
Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, Ramayana is the biggest Indian film in terms of scale and budget. After its world premiere in Los Angeles last week, Ramayana held a special screening in Mumbai on Tuesday, attended by the cast and crew, as well as members of the film fraternity.
There, Namit spoke to news agency PTI about what he hopes to achieve with the film. "In India, there are a lot of questions like, 'Why are they making the Ramayana when there have been so many Ramayanas? We already know the story.' And I'm like, 'Listen, we're making it because we want to show you the version of this story that you've never seen.' No television show, no street play, no Ram Leela has ever shown you the Ramayana on this scale and with this spectacle that we are making...Much like an Avatar or an Avengers movie or think about Spider-Man or The Odyssey. We're putting Ramayana right up there next to all of those spectacles," Namit Malhotra told PTI.
Ramayana, made on a reported budget of ₹4000 crore, is one of the most expensive film productions in the world, not just in India. With VFX from eight-time Oscar-winning studio DNEG, it is being marketed as India's first film equivalent of Hollywood blockbusters. For its global release, the makers have partnered with Sony Pictures, which is giving it the widest release for any Indian film - in 70,000 screens.
Talking about the film's global ambitions, Namit added, “If you think about the West, they are the most potent audience for anything that's got a grand epic spectacle. And that's just not how Indian films have been made. So while India makes terrific Indian movies, whether it is 'Baahubali', 'Dhurandhar', or any of the big, super-duper hit films, they are not spectacles the way Hollywood thinks of spectacles. We are first trying to narrow that gap down and saying, 'If you can do it, we can do it too.' There's no reason for us to have any discrepancy. So, every person in Hollywood should acknowledge that India can also do something as good, if not bigger, than what they do.”