SS Rajamouli has revealed new-look photos of Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ Mandakini in his epic action-adventure movie Varanasi. Notably, Varanasi is Rajamouli’s first movie since the Oscar-winning blockbuster RRR. It’s also his first movie with Chopra Jonas.
Director SS Rajamouli offers new look at Varanasi on Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ birthday.
Rajamouli took to Instagram to share new images featuring Chopra Jonas’ Mandakini on the latter’s real-world birthday on July 18. “Grace when she smiles. Fire when she doesn’t. Mandakini… @PriyankaChopra in #Varanasi,” the filmmaker wrote in the caption.
Rajamouli is directing Varanasi from a screenplay he wrote with Vijayendra Prasad and SS Kanchi. Besides Chopra Jonas, the cast of the movie includes Mahesh Babu as Rudhra and Lord Rama, Prithviraj Sukumaran as Kumbha, and Prakash Raj. Its log line reads, “Follows Rudhra’s perilous adventures as ancient Varanasi stands on the brink of catastrophe from a looming asteroid in 2027 CE, unfolding across multiple timelines and distant continents.”
Varanasi is an ambitious project that Rajamouli described as “a globetrotting action adventure. It’s going to be a kind of James Bond or Indiana Jones film with Indian roots” (via The Tribune). The movie had several working titles, including GlobeTrotter and SSMB29, before the official title was revealed.
Back in November 2025, while revealing the first footage from the movie, the director of the Baahubali films detailed what led him to take on such a mammoth project. “From childhood I’ve thought many times about making a Mahabharata-level dream project. Even when starting this film, I planned that I must take one major pillar from the Ramayana,” he said (via Variety). Notably, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the two most prominent epics of India.
Rajamouli also revealed that the production for Varanasi lasted 60 days, adding that the research for the project was “fully done.” Varanasi marks Chopra Jonas’ return to Indian cinema as an actress after 2019’s The Sky Is Pink. Her most recent overall projects were the Prime Video swashbuckler action thriller film The Bluff, opposite Karl Urban, and Season 2 of Prime Video spy action series Citadel.
Varanasi debuts in theaters globally on April 7, 2027.
