Dubai: UAE-based businessman Dr B R Shetty is investing Rs 1,000 crore to produce India’s biggest ever motion picture, The Mahabharata, which will be directed by noted ad man and advertising filmmaker V A Shrikumar Menon. It will be produced in two parts and is scheduled to go on the floors by September 2018 for a release in early 2020. The second part will be released within 90 days of the first.

“The film will be shot primarily in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu and will be dubbed into major Indian languages and leading foreign languages,” a release from a company owned by serial entrepreneur and B R Shetty, who is backing the film, said.

“This film will have an identity across continents, with their representatives donning the myriad characters in The Mahabharata! A global team led by an internationally renowned casting director will handpick the cast,” the release said.

"The screenplay is written by the writer himself, who holds a record of maximum national awards for screen writing in the history of Indian cinema," the release said.

This ancient Sanskrit epic has been a topic of creative adaptation in various formats for many decades.There have also been efforts to render it, but successes have been limited to the stage or serialisation for television audiences. Hence, this project would be the first of its kind to take the epic which has engaged generations of audiences on the silver screen at such a grand level, the release said.

Shrikumar Menon, Director, who has been living the script and researching for this project for the past few years, said "We are fully geared to attain the next level of production quality and visual magic, as well as narrative wizardry with this initiative.