Wait is over: Shekhar Kapur to helm Amish's Shiva trilogy web series

Celebrated author Amish Tripathi’s best-selling mythological fiction The Immortals of Meluha, the first part of the Shiva trilogy books, will soon be adapted into a series.

Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, best known for films like Mr India and Bandit Queen, has been roped in to direct the series titled Shiva, which will be produced by International Art Machine.

“Amish’s Shiva Trilogy has been India’s great publishing sensation, crossing every age and class. It’s not just mythology, it’s modern storytelling at its best, lending itself to a beautiful international series,” Kapur said.

Suparn S Varma, who had directed Amazon Prime’s Family Man 2, will be the showrunner.

Varma said that the book series is “a genre-defining book” and has “become part of the pop culture of the country.”

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“I loved the reimagining and the world-building involving two of my favourite gods. The scale of vision and the ambition of our show visually and emotionally is as huge a task but we want to bring to audiences a vision that has never been seen before on screens,” Varma added.

Tripathi’s The Immortals of Meluha is set in 1900 BC in the land of Meluha.

The book series narrates the story of a rugged Tibetan immigrant named Shiva, who Meluhans believe to be their fabled saviour ‘Neelkanth’. Shiva helps them in their war against the Chandravanshis.

This book is followed by The Secret of the Nagas (2011) and The Oath of the Vayuputras (2013), which was published by Westland publications.

Tripathi said that he is thrilled to collaborate with Kapur, Varma and Roy.

“One couldn’t have asked for a better team than this to take my books into the audio-visual world. I am sure that with a team like this, we will create a web series that is worthy of Lord Shiva,” Tripathi said.

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Global entertainment studio International Art Machine will make its debut in India with Shiva. The studio has also signed murder mystery thriller The Kitty Party with actress Preity Zinta and political drama Gods with critically acclaimed director Dibakar Banerjee.