The director of ‘Kalki 2898 AD’, Nag Ashwin has opened up on the prelude of the film — the sci-fi series ‘Bujji & Bhairava’, and shared that they found a new style, and they didn’t compromise on anything — the writing, lighting, and detailing.
This action-packed series features animated versions of Bujji and Bhairava, characters from the film ‘Kalki 2898 AD’.
Talking about the prelude, Nag said: “I always felt that it’s more fun to go to films whose characters you already know and are invested in… that’s why Marvel works so well… I wanted to see if we could pull that off, even in a small way. When we started this, we didn’t know how hard it would be… we started with four episodes… but in almost two years, we could only finish two.”
The story of this two-episode prelude is set in the year 2896 AD, in the futuristic, albeit dystopian, city of Kasi. Bhairava is a bounty hunter, and Bujji is an AI pilot of a cargo ship. Both suffer setbacks in their journeys and an unlikely partnership blooms, setting the stage for adventure.
Nag, who is also known for his work ‘Pitta Kathalu’ said: “We found a new style, didn’t compromise on anything: the writing, the lighting, the detailing. We would have seen these two episodes over 200 times at least to get it right… It’s a lot of hard work to make things look easy. The prelude world is similar to the film, although a little more light-hearted. It helps get people used to the characters and the world.”
The two episodes, each a little over 14 minutes long, establish the world of ‘Kalki’ and are available in English, Telugu, Hindi, and Spanish. It is streaming on Prime Video.
Meanwhile, ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ is produced by C Aswani Dutt under Vyjayanthi Movies. The film stars Prabhas in the titular role, alongside Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Deepika Padukone and Disha Patani. It is set to release on June 27.