Overview
- At a June 27 masterclass in France, S. S. Rajamouli said Varanasi is being made as one standalone film and that its emotional core is a father–son relationship.
- Rajamouli told reporters that all the film’s major spectacle sequences conceived for IMAX have been shot and that the production is now filming smaller connecting scenes before wrapping principal photography by September or early October.
- Multiple outlets report the production will stage a massive war sequence in Hyderabad starting July 7 that will use about 3,500 junior artistes on set and then digitally multiply those performers in VFX to portray an army reportedly envisioned as up to 50,000 vanars on screen.
- The cast includes Mahesh Babu, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Prithviraj Sukumaran with writer V. Vijayendra Prasad teasing a roughly 30‑minute Rama–Kumbhakarna battle episode as one of the film’s showpieces.
- Varanasi is targeting an April 7, 2027 theatrical release, and industry attention is shifting to post-production tasks—visual effects, editing and sound—which will determine how the practical shoots are expanded and finished for large‑format release.