Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Madhu Mantena on Draupadi: Deepika Padukone and I are working hard to put everything together

Madhu Mantena on Draupadi: Deepika Padukone and I are working hard to put everything together

Last seen in Chhapaak (2020), Deepika Padukone has a string of high-profile films in her pocket, one of them being Draupadi, which she and well-known producer Madhu Mantena announced in 2019. The magnum-opus tells the epic tale of Mahabharata from the point of view of Draupadi and is one of the hugely anticipated Bollywood films.

It has been two years since the makers officially announced the film with much fanfare, but we have not heard anything from them afterwards. Talking to an entertainment portal, producer Madhu Mantena has now confirmed that Draupadi is very much in the making and the team is planning to roll it after Ramayana, which Nitesh Tiwari is set to direct.


“Deepika and I are making it together, but it is going to be Ramayana first. These things take time and we do not want to be irresponsible in our approach. Deepika and I are trying to do the Mahabharata from Draupadi’s point of view because we want the people to understand who Draupadi is. There is a lot of research that is going on,” Mantena divulges.

He goes on to add that the team have already reached the process of zeroing down on the material for the final screenplay. “Various drafts are being worked upon. Deepika is not making this film because she is an actor, she is making it because she and I strongly feel that it is a great story that is to be told from Draupadi’s point of view. We are working hard to put everything together. These projects do take time, and we all know that. These are not small responsibilities; we are looking to create a world which has not been seen before,” he concludes.

Interestingly, Deepika Padukone is leading the race to bag the character of Sita in Mantena’s Ramayana also. Hrithik Roshan and Mahesh Babu are said to have been approached to play Ravan and Ram respectively. An official announcement is highly awaited though.

Keep visiting this space over and again for more updates and reveals from the world of entertainment.

More For You

Samir Zaidi

Two Sinners marks Samir Zaidi’s striking directorial debut

Samir Zaidi, director of 'Two Sinners', emerges as a powerful new voice in Indian film

Indian cinema has a long tradition of discovering new storytellers in unexpected places, and one recent voice that has attracted quiet, steady attention is Samir Zaidi. His debut short film Two Sinners has been travelling across international festivals, earning strong praise for its emotional depth and moral complexity. But what makes Zaidi’s trajectory especially compelling is how organically it has unfolded — grounded not in film school training, but in lived observation, patient apprenticeships and a deep belief in the poetry of everyday life.

Zaidi’s relationship with creativity began well before he ever stepped onto a set. “As a child, I was fascinated by small, fleeting things — the way people spoke, the silences between arguments, the patterns of light on the walls,” he reflects. He didn’t yet have the vocabulary for what he was absorbing, but the instinct was already in place. At 13, he turned to poetry, sensing that the act of shaping emotions into words offered a kind of clarity he couldn’t find elsewhere. “I realised creativity wasn’t something external I had to chase; it was a way of processing the world,” he says. “Whether it was writing or filmmaking, it came from the same impulse: to make sense of what I didn’t fully understand.”

Keep ReadingShow less