The biggest set pieces of Varanasi are already in the can, and that single update from S.S. Rajamouli is enough to send anticipation soaring for his much-awaited film with Mahesh Babu. As the director shared where production now stands, he revealed that the most ambitious action stretches have been completed and the film has entered a crucial finishing phase.
With Mahesh Babu, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Prithviraj Sukumaran headlining the cast, Varanasi remains one of the most closely watched Indian productions in development. Rajamouli’s latest comments, delivered during his visit to the Annecy Animation Festival work-in-progress panel, offer the clearest indication yet that the film is steadily moving toward the end of principal photography.
Ss Rajamouli Shares The Latest Varanasi Update
Opening up about the progress of Varanasi, Rajamouli said, “What I can say is we have completed a major portion of the shoot, all the important big spectacle action sequences are done. We are into doing the smaller, interconnecting scenes so hopefully, by September, maybe a little bit into October, we should be finishing shooting.”
He also clarified that IMAX did not alter the film’s core visual design. Rajamouli said, “From the beginning, we knew the sequences that were conceived would be best justified in the Imax format, we didn’t change anything just for the format.” He added, “Because our eyes have been trained to shoot in the CinemaScope format, which obviously I love, [we were] just thinking about, we need to frame this to look good both in Imax as well as CinemaScope, the anamorphic framing, so that took a little bit of adjustment for the first few initial days. Then we understood how to do it.”
Those remarks underline how far the production has progressed, especially on the spectacle front that audiences closely associate with Rajamouli’s filmmaking.
Baahubali Expansion Continues Alongside Varanasi
Rajamouli also spoke about balancing Varanasi with the animated Baahubali feature The Eternal War. Explaining how naturally that world continues to grow, he said, “We have a whole world of ‘Baahubali’ that’s already been written, so we don’t need to dwell when we step into the world of ‘Baahubali,’ there’s a lot of work that’s already done.”
On filmmaker Ishan Shukla joining the project, Rajamouli said, “The second part is when a person like Ishan [Shukla] comes in, you see and test the initial whether he has that understanding of how the characters in ‘Baahubali work, ‘and once you see that yes, he understood it, I step back, and I let them take over.”
Why The Mahesh Babu And Rajamouli Pairing Matters
For Mahesh Babu, Varanasi marks a landmark collaboration at a time when his filmography has remained under intense audience focus. He was last seen in Guntur Kaaram in 2024, after Sarkaru Vaari Paata in 2022, and the Rajamouli film now stands as his most significant confirmed big-screen move ahead.
That is also why the excitement around Varanasi feels unusually charged. Mahesh Babu brings enormous star power across Telugu cinema, while Rajamouli arrives with the kind of global crossover momentum few Indian filmmakers currently command after Baahubali and RRR. Add Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Prithviraj Sukumaran to that mix, and the project has naturally become one of the industry’s most closely tracked event films.
Stay tuned with us for the latest news, Hindi box office news, Hollywood news, OTT news, the latest Bollywood news, and the latest box office news.
