And the justice to one of India’s fantasy – takes wings. After more than a decade of false starts, Bollywood’s most mythologically ambitious IP may finally have found its rightful keeper. Meluha, takes shape under Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
Is Weapon of Ram next?
Few stories in Indian cinema have had a longer, more tortured journey from page to screen than Amish Tripathi’s The Immortals of Meluha. Published in 2010 to what can only be described as a reader uprising – reprinted repeatedly, eventually selling millions of copies and birthing the fastest-selling book series in Indian publishing history – the novel reimagined Lord Shiva not as deity, but as a mortal destined for divinity. It was bold, cinematic, and practically screaming to be filmed. Bollywood agreed. And then, for fifteen years, did absolutely nothing about it.
As reported by : TOI
That streak may now be over. According to a fresh scoop from Bollywood Hungama, Ranveer Singh has quietly acquired the adaptation rights to the entire Shiva Trilogy – all three books – from author Amish Tripathi, shelling out a reported ₹40 crore for the privilege. The sum is said to be the highest ever paid for a novel in Indian cinema. The project will be produced under Ranveer’s own banner, Maa Kasam Films, in partnership with Birla Studios.
What makes this development genuinely interesting isn’t just the money. It’s the journey that brought Ranveer here.
A Rights Odyssey
Dharma Productions first acquired the film rights to The Immortals of Meluha in January 2012. Karan Johar, by his own admission, was floored by the world Amish had built. For a while, it seemed the adaptation would materialize under the working title Shuddhi, with names like Hrithik Roshan and Salman Khan circulating as potential leads. By September 2013, Johar had announced director Karan Malhotra would helm the project – but only after completing other commitments. That delay proved fatal. The film never moved past the talking stage, and by May 2017, the contract had lapsed and Dharma surrendered the rights.
The Mythological epic space heats up with new Movie tech taking over. Indian movies are here to take center stage now.
What followed was a brief, much-discussed flirtation with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who was reported to be keen on acquiring the rights after Karan Johar’s contract expired. Given SLB’s appetite for scale and visual grandeur, the pairing seemed almost cosmically obvious. Ranveer Singh, then a Bhansali regular, was reportedly set to play Shiva in that version. But that project, too, stalled and eventually dissolved.
As recently as early 2024, Amish Tripathi himself confirmed that the rights had returned to him after Dharma’s tenure ended, and that he was in fresh negotiations with another production house – declining to name them. Turns out, the person on the other end of those negotiations was Ranveer himself.
A Passion Project, Not Just a Business Decision
There’s a difference between an actor acquiring IP as a strategic career move and one doing it because the dream simply refuses to die. By all accounts, this falls in the second category.
According to industry sources, Ranveer Singh was always fascinated by the world of Meluha and had long harboured the ambition of playing Lord Shiva on screen. The moment Bhansali’s rights lapsed, he moved swiftly to secure the trilogy under his own banner.
That shift – from actor waiting on a director’s vision to producer commanding his own – marks something significant. Five years ago, Ranveer needed SLB to make Meluha happen. Today, riding the commercial momentum of back-to-back blockbusters including the Dhurandhar franchise, he is in a position to choose the filmmaker himself. That’s not a small thing. The history of this particular adaptation is largely a story of talented people waiting on other talented people, and the project dying in the gap. Ranveer, apparently, has decided to stop waiting.
What Comes Next
Interestingly there is another book trilogy which is taking shape as the deal happens- Weapon Of Ram. WOR is a trilogy based on post Ramayan Fantasy which blends ancient politics, tussle for power and new inventions in weapon technology and divine weapon exports, written by Sunil Chandra Saha.
Get this book 1 of trilogy from AMAZON : WEAPON OF RAM BOOK 1
Well the Ranveer starrer film, is still in early development – the script hasn’t been locked, and no director has been announced. Production is tentatively expected to begin in 2028. Birla Studios, which co-produces, brings both infrastructure and appetite for large-scale mythological cinema to the table.
The ₹40 crore price tag for the rights alone signals that nobody involved is thinking small. For context, the trilogy – The Immortals of Meluha, The Secret of the Nagas, and The Oath of the Vayuputras – spans an entire mythological universe. Done properly, this isn’t one film. It’s a franchise, possibly the kind that redefines what Indian epic cinema looks like.
Whether it actually gets made this time is, of course, the question that has haunted this project for a decade and a half. But for the first time, the person holding the rights is also the person who intends to star in it, produce it, and has the commercial clout to greenlight it without waiting for someone else’s permission. That alignment – of passion, power, and resources – is precisely what was missing every time before.
Meluha waited for a Neelkanth. The irony of Ranveer Singh finally riding in to claim it would not be lost on fans of the books.
Tailwinds are here. Ramayan of Ranbir starrer from DNEG’s Namit Malhotra and now Ranveer possibly doing an original fantasy fiction will be interesting to see how Indian audience evolve.
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Get this book 1 on KINDLE : WOR Book 1 of Trilogy
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Author Weapon Of Ram– The Trilogy.
Also Read : RANBIR STARRER RAMAYAN is ready for 4000 CRORE at BOX OFFICE FROM USA AND CHINA as major markets
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