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Rana Daggubati Discusses His New Film Slate Across Tamil, Telugu and Hindi; Keen to Create 'More Democratic' Production Company
Rana Daggubati's new slate also includes a Hindi film starring Manoj Bajpayee, adapted from the novel 'Last Man in Tower'
Rana Daggubati is in characteristically high spirits. On-screen, he’s back to commanding the big screen as the towering Bhallaladeva in Baahubali: The Epic, and off-screen, he’s quietly building a formidable slate under his banner of Spirit Media.
The actor-producer's new slate includes an untitled Hindi feature starring Manoj Bajpayee—Spirit Media’s debut in Hindi-language production—adapted from Aravind Adiga’s acclaimed novel Last Man in the Tower.
Also on the horizon is Kaantha, a Tamil-language period noir drama-thriller starring Dulquer Salmaan and Daggubati as well. Directed by Selvamani Selvaraj, the film is set for a November 14 theatrical release. Beyond that, three Telugu titles are in various stages of production: Dark Chocolate, a pulpy dark-comedy thriller co-produced with Waltair Productions; Psych Siddharth, a youth-driven drama presented and distributed by Spirit Media; and Premante, a love-comedy-thriller produced by Sree Venkateswara Cinemas LLP with Daggubati’s backing.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, the actor-producer, whose company also distributed All We Imagine As Light and Sabar Bonda, discusses scaling up, nurturing debut filmmakers, and charting his five-year roadmap as a producer post his Baahubali era.
Edited excerpts from a conversation:
What is the larger vision here in terms of a producer?
Post-Baahubali, since you mentioned the film, let's keep it as a reference point. We've really moved forward in terms of what to achieve on-screen. But when it comes to production, mostly Indian entertainment companies have either been large networks or independent producers that have been there for generations, in some ways, more family-driven. That made us wonder what the possibility is of creating a newer or slightly more democratic production company, to create an ecosystem like the West has, where there is a professional bunch of producers who can move in with newer talent, newer content and newer IPs. That's why around years ago, I started the journey of building Spirit into a production company.
We were able to identify independent people who were ready to take the big leap as producers. So we set that team up first, and then started finding talent. All the films that you will see in the next few years are with newer directors. That's the direction we want to go forward. with. And it is not like we are doing really small independent films with newer talent. Kaantha, the first film that's coming out, is a huge production with stars like DQ and me. It has that grand scale setting.
What stages are these five productions at?
So, Kaantha is releasing on November 14. The adaptation of Last Man in Tower is close to completing production and then post-production will kick on; that will come out sometime early to mid next year. We have Premante, which is a rom-com in Telugu, that will be out two weeks after Kaantha.
How do you operate as a producer? How involved are you in script selection?
I think I've been quite instrumental in terms of building the first round of people who will write scripts. That comes from some understanding that I have had over the last 20 years in terms of working with different filmmakers as an actor. I got to see up close how different filmmakers create their stuff. So that's a process that I'm pretty much hands-on in with in some films, especially Telugu and Tamil, because it's the language that I speak and culture that I know. As for production, it's really been a professional run of taking things forward, and I have a fantastic team spearheading these films.
The good part is that, over my lifetime so far, I have done many different things in movies. I got to be in the visual effects world for the first round of my career, followed by production (he produced Bommalata in 2004, six years before his screen debut) and then an actor. So I got to learn a lot.
What does the vision look like for Spirit Media in the next five years?
See, right now we're putting out five filmmakers who are brimming with new, honest storytelling. We have a couple of actors that we've launched for the first time in these movies, so it's really a burst of the first round of talent that we're launching. We hope that in the next three to five years, we will multiply this significantly.