Brahmāstra (film)

Brahmāstra: Part One of Three, also known as Brahmāstra, is an upcoming 2020 Indian Hindi-language action fantasy film written and directed by Ayan Mukerji, and produced by Karan Johar. It stars Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Mouni Roy and Nagarjuna Akkineni in pivotal roles and will serve as the first film in a planned trilogy.

Principal photography began in Bulgaria in February 2018 and the film is scheduled for release on 4 December 2020 in standard formats, 3D, and IMAX.

Cast

 * Ayan
 * Amitabh Bachchan as Brahma
 * Ranbir Kapoor as Shiva
 * Alia Bhatt as Isha
 * Mouni Roy as Damyanti
 * Nagarjuna Akkineni as Vishnu
 * Dimple Kapadia
 * Prateik Babbar
 * Divyenndu
 * Vishal Karwal
 * Saurav Gurjar
 * Rashi Mal as Raveena
 * Shah Rukh Khan in a cameo

Development
Producer Karan Johar announced the film via Twitter on 11 October 2017 revealing that it would be made into a film trilogy. The preparation for the film started in January 2018. In an interview, Kapoor revealed that Mukerji "has spent six years of his life working really hard to make an original story" and that the trilogy would be made over a period of 10 years and refuted rumours suggesting that it is a romantic superhero film. Instead Kapoor confirmed that the film is a "romantic-fairytale in a supernatural format." and that the film is not something which "doesn't have truth to it, or which is unbelievable".

Initially 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,". Mukerji also revealed that it is a "contemporary film with ancient elements."

Nagarjuna also confirmed that he would be playing a "pivotal" role. Mouni Roy reavealed in an interview that she is playing the 'only antagonist' in the movie.

Characters
Director Ayan Mukherjee revealed that the inspiration behind Actor Ranbir Kapoor's character came from Rumi who also inspired the first look of his character. Mukherji also drew inspiration from Rumi's work: "love is the bridge between you and everything" to build the foundation of the movie. Later, Mukherji revealed that the Rumi-inspired look was scrapped and Kapoor had gotten a haircut instead.

Kapoor revealed his experience with look tests for the film expressing that it is a "tedious job, sticking removing applying de applying and applying again, until some decision is reached"

Filming
The principal photography began in February 2018 with the commencement of the first schedule of the film on 24 February 2018. The first schedule of the movie was wrapped up in Bulgaria on 24 March 2018. The second schedule of filming continued in Bulgaria and then London on 8 July 2018., in London, New York and then in Bulgaria. Extensive shooting started on 1 February 2019 at Edinburgh, Scotland. The 20-day schedule started in the Ramnagar Fort and Chet Singh Fort in Varanasi on 30 July 2019.

Soundtrack
The music of the film will be composed by Pritam while the lyrics will be penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya.

Promotion
The title logo of the film was revealed on 4 March 2019. In the evening of the same day logo of the film Brahmāstra was launched on Maha Shivratri at Kumbh Mela. In first of its kind 150 drones were used to lit the sky up to form the logo. A video of launch of logo at Kumbh Mela 2019 was released by Fox Star Hindi on 5 March 2019, a new promotional initiative in Bollywood. The official logo of Brahmāstra was released on 6 March 2019. Baahubali director SS Rajamouli and Tamil actor Dhanush launch the logos of the movie in Telugu and Tamil.

Release
The part one of the trilogy film was officially announced to release on 15 August 2019 but later the release date was pushed to Christmas 2019 but later due to incomplete VFX work it was again pushed to summer 2020 and then finally pushed to 4 December 2020. It will be released in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.