Nag Ashwin On Kalki 2898 Ad Being Compared To Star Wars, Mad Max, Dune: It Has Nothing to Do With...

Nag Ashwin directed Kalki 2899 AD hit the big screens on June 27. Set 6000 years after the Kurukshetra war, the film stars Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Disha Patani and Kamal Haasan. The sci-fiction movie opened to a thunderous response at the box office and was received positively by critics and audiences alike. In a new interview following the release of the film, the director replies to the comparison of the movie with Marvel superhero films. 

Nag Ashwin on Kalki 2898 AD being compared to Marvel superhero films

Kalki 2898 AD has been praised for weaving together elements from the Mahabharata with sci-fi and director Nag Ashwin, who already has a sequel in the works, is confident that Indian mythological stories, if told correctly, can match the complexity of the Western superhero genre. Talking about the same the director told PTI, "I don't know if it is an answer or not but we definitely have the kind of stories and the depth, complexity and heroism that any other Marvel or DC movie (has). We just have to delve into it and tell it in the correct way.”

“If we tell it in a way that the generation now is used to, maybe mix it with sci-fi, I feel that would be the correct way. And that's actually worked out because people are now feeling that it is our story," Ashwin told PTI in an interview. Set in the future dystopian city of Kashi (Varanasi), the story revolves around Bachchan's immortal warrior Ashwathhama who is trying to protect the next avatar of Lord Vishnu, carried by Padukone's Sumathi. Prabhas' Bhairava, a bounty hunter, is sent to find her by Haasan's antagonist Supreme Yaskin.

Nag Ashwin spills beans on Kalki 2898 AD sequel 

The sequel of Kalki 2898 AD is already in the works, he said, adding that it will be a continuation of the story, which looks familiar and yet fresh."They have seen these familiar tropes in Star Wars and Marvel films but it is still in Kashi. It still has an auto on the streets. It feels like all the worlds have come together... You don't want to feel derivative, you don't want to feel like it's Blade Runner. It should look like Kashi, not Tokyo." Some of the visuals of the film have been compared to recent Hollywood futuristic spectacles be it the Mad Max movies or Dune. The director, however, said there is nothing common between his film and the two Hollywood movies other than visuals of the desert. "I love 'Star Wars'... There must be something subconscious there. In other movies not so much except for the fact that we have desert in our film and there is also desert in Dune and Mad Max. "Apart from that, it has nothing to do with the story, technology or design. Having the funny robot sidekick (Bhairava's AI car Bujji) is probably a Star Wars thing. Maybe ageing the vehicles to make them look rusty was also an aesthetic from there," he said. 

(With inputs from PTI)