For director Prasanth Varma, Hanu-Man is a passion project. He found the perfect collaborator in Teja Sajja, who plays a modern-day superhero infused with the power of Hanuman. Fronting the ambitious project was a matter of pride for the Telugu actor, but on the ground level, it was a tough shoot. Despite extensive VFX to aid the storytelling, Sajja says pulling off the action sequences was taxing. “It was a physically demanding film. We shot the movie for about 120 days, out of which 70 days were about filming action scenes. I suffered many injuries. Prasanth is someone who won’t compromise on [his shots]. I used to do close to 25 takes for each shot while hanging from ropes because the timing of the camera, movement of the rope and landing positions [had to be perfect],” says the actor.

With Hanu-Man, the director has married Artificial Intelligence (AI) apps with storytelling. Last June, mid-day had reported how Varma and his AI prompt engineers utilised Midjourney to design the film’s posters (How AI gives birth to a new team of prompt engineers in Indian cinema, June 11).