He Dropped Out Of Engineering, Made 12 Hits, Now Priyanka Chopra Leads His Biggest Gamble

SS Rajamouli has never made a flop. Now, the engineering dropout is betting a reported Rs 1,300 to Rs 1,400 crore on Varanasi, and Priyanka Chopra's fierce first look offers a glimpse of just how big that bet is.

The images show Priyanka as Mandakini, dressed in black and wielding a gun in the wilderness of Kenya's Maasai Mara, a long way from the Bollywood sets where her career began.

Described as strong, vulnerable and unforgettable, Mandakini marks Priyanka's return to Indian theatrical cinema seven years after The Sky Is Pink.

But Varanasi is not merely a comeback vehicle. It is Rajamouli's first original film since RRR and the most expensive gamble yet for a director who has spent 25 years making the impossible look commercially safe.

From Two Rooms To A Rs 1,400-Crore Film

Rajamouli was born into a Telugu film family, but not one cushioned by wealth.

His family lost much of its money while he was still young. At one stage, around 13 relatives were reportedly squeezed into a two-room apartment as his father, screenwriter KV Vijayendra Prasad, struggled to find sustained success.

Rajamouli enrolled in engineering but dropped out. He never attended film school.

Instead, he learnt cinema from the floor up. He assisted an editor, worked in a recording studio and directed episodes of the Telugu television serial Shanti Nivasam under veteran filmmaker K Raghavendra Rao's supervision.

His imagination came from Amar Chitra Katha, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. They taught him to think in gods, warriors, impossible missions and moral showdowns. Editing rooms and television sets taught him how to turn those ideas into moving images.

Myth gave him scale. The grind gave him craft.

Twelve Films, No Box-Office Flop

Rajamouli made his feature debut with Student No. 1 in 2001. He followed it with Simhadri, Sye, Chatrapathi, Vikramarkudu, Yamadonga, Magadheera, Maryada Ramanna, Eega, the two Baahubali films and RRR.

Across 12 features, he has maintained an extraordinary commercial record. Every film has been recognised as a success, ranging from a hit to an industry blockbuster.

Baahubali transformed a leading Telugu filmmaker into a pan-India phenomenon and rewrote the commercial limits of regional cinema.

RRR took him further. The film became a global sensation, earned praise from James Cameron and Steven Spielberg, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Naatu Naatu.

Varanasi is film number 13, and the stakes have never been higher.

Priyanka's Return, His Biggest World Yet

The action-adventure spans thousands of years and several continents, moving through ancient civilisations, Antarctica, Africa and Varanasi.

Rather than relying entirely on visual effects, Rajamouli recreated the sacred city's ghats, temples and palatial architecture in Hyderabad. Portions were filmed in Kenya's Maasai Mara with real wildlife visible in the landscape.

Mahesh Babu leads the film as Rudhra and also portrays Lord Rama in another part of the story. Prithviraj Sukumaran plays Kumbha, a wheelchair-using antagonist described as dangerously unlimited in his thinking. Priyanka's Mandakini is caught between the two men.

"I have been working on it for about 14 months now," Priyanka said on the Hey Jonas podcast, describing the film as an epic adventure "around the world and in time".

She disclosed little else, except one tantalising detail: "I do many amazing slow-motion jumps in it."

The makers have not officially disclosed the film's cost. Reports, however, place it at approximately $150 million, or Rs 1,300 to Rs 1,400 crore. If that estimate holds, Varanasi will rank among the most expensive films in Indian cinema.

The film is scheduled to release worldwide on April 7, 2027.

For Priyanka, it is a return to Indian cinema on its grandest possible canvas. For Rajamouli, it is the biggest test yet of a record that has survived 12 films, rising budgets and ever more impossible promises.