'Shivanagam' VFX cost over Rs. 20 crore: Kodi Ramakrishna

Chennai, Oct 10: Veteran filmmaker Kodi Ramakrishna says a whopping Rs 15 crore $2.2 million) was spent on the visual effects (VFX) of forthcoming trilingual mythological fantasy thriller "Shivanagam", which features nearly 60 minutes of computer-generated graphics.

The film, which stars Divya Spandana in the lead, will simultaneously release in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada.

"This is a film where a girl takes revenge in her reincarnation. The story revolves around 120-foot snake of Lord Shiva. The film features nearly one hour of high-end computer graphics and my producers spent over Rs. 20 crore on the VFX alone," Ramakrishna told IANS.

Late Kannada superstar Vishnuvardhan was digitally recreated for the film.

"One of the highlights of the film will be the scene where Vishnuvardhan makes a grand entry. He appears for about 10 minutes and it took 32 months to create this brief portion in VFX, and it cost us Rs. 15 crore. Another attraction of the film will be scene where Divya transforms into a snake," he said.

The VFX in the film was created by Makuta VFX, the company behind films such as "Eega" and "Baahubali".

Asked why they didn't rope in a popular star instead of taking the pain to recreate Vishnuvardhan digitally, Ramakrishna said: "We could have roped in a very big star. But we took it up as a challenge to create Vishnuvardhan with CGI technology. We did it because we wanted more filmmakers to use the technology in the future."

The film is produced by Sajid Qureshi, and it's being released in Tamil by Sri Thenandal Films.