What brought it on?Ĭhopra: It's hard to distill the resurrection of the company to any one thing. : Talk about Liquid's consolidation in Los Angeles. We think we're on our way to creating something that will really be an enduring franchise. His team, led by Cathy Schulman - who has a long list of achievements, including an Oscar - have been awesome to work with already. Peter Guber, the chairman of the company and Hollywood legend, has been a longtime personal mentor to me. In particular with Mandalay, we also know we have partners that see beyond just the latest trend. In that regard, I wish I could take all the credit for Ramayan, but it happens to be a story 6,000 years in the making, so we feel like we are on pretty solid ground. To that extent, I am a big believer in survival of the fittest I think the stories with the greatest depth will likely be the ones to ultimately succeed. We want to embrace a dynamic color palette.Ĭhopra: As everyone in this business knows, there's a big difference between optioning and developing properties, and making a movie.

That said, we also intend to push the envelope, utilizing technology that produced 300, but likely moving away from the monochromatic color schemes that defined it and others in the genre. Mark's history with 300, which redefined the way films of this ilk can be made, aligns perfectly with what we think Ramayan can be. Obviously Ramayan is a world unto itself with its own texture, culture and ethos, especially in the way that we have re-imagined it. Was that part of your decision to work with him?Ĭhopra: Absolutely. It's also about families, species and all of civilization uniting to tackle larger, more daunting, adversaries. Those themes, in our mind, are really universal, as this is a story about the type of leadership required in calamitous times. To that extent, ours has never been envisioned as an authentic retelling, but rather a re-imagined version, inspired by some of the core themes of the original.

That's an important note, not only so that people who have never heard of Ramayan can enjoy it, but also so those who are familiar with it are not offended by the film. Obviously, our goal is to create a narrative structure that doesn't require a familiarity with the original story. Gotham Chopra: Can you say, 'Trilogy?' Seriously, this is something we've talked about at length even in relation to the original comic series.

Ramayan 2008