Last week was all about applause for filmmaker SS Rajamouli as he showed the first glimpse of Varanasi at La Cinémathèque Française in Paris on June 27, marking its first presentation to the European audience. Now, the filmmaker is set to dive again into the shoot of the Mahesh Babu, Priyanka Chopra, and Prithviraj-starrer. mid-day has learnt that beginning July 7, the leading man and the director will film one of the movie’s biggest war set-pieces, involving 3500 junior artistes, in Hyderabad.

A production insider revealed, “Preparations have been going on for weeks ahead of shooting the war sequence. The scale is unprecedented, even by Rajamouli’s standards.”

According to another insider, the shoot with 3500 junior artistes will only be the starting point. The sequence’s scale will be magnified at the VFX table.

The insider shared, “Thousands of performers will later be expanded digitally through VFX, resulting in an army that is several times larger on screen. The ambition is to create one of the biggest battle spectacles attempted in Indian cinema. We will see 50,000 vanars on screen.”

Varanasi is said to be a mythological action epic that follows the protagonist’s adventures across timelines.