Nitesh Tiwari revealed that bringing the Ravana-Jatayu fight in ‘Ramayana‘ to life took six and a half years, from the initial briefing to the final frame. Nearly two years of that went into designing the Pushpak Viman; the team worked through 40 to 50 versions before settling on one. Since the final design of the mythical aircraft strayed from the original concept, the filmmaker said the fight sequence required reworking after repeated iterations.

Nitesh Tiwari on the scale of work behind the fight

Speaking to Shreyas Media about the scale of work behind the sequence, Tiwari said, “You know how much time it has taken for us to finish the Ravana and Jatayu fight? From the time I briefed the previous artist to the time we finished the whole thing, six and a half years. One action sequence. I can go on and on about it for an hour just to tell you how much effort went into making everything from scratch. And thousands of people have worked on it.”

Why the Pushpak Viman design took two years

Tiwari then spoke about why the vehicle’s design took so long to lock in, saying, “We took close to two years to arrive at that. And then a lot of things changed, which is why it took us so long to shape the Ravana and Jatayu fight. Because previously, we assumed the design of Pushpak Viman would be something like that, and we shaped the sequence around it. And when we loved the final design, which was completely different from what we had first thought, we had to do a lot of iterations.”He added, “We created some 40-50 designs for Pushpak Viman before finalising the one you see in the film. We didn’t want something that did look like it could fly, we wanted some kind of science to go into it. Because I believe, we all believe there was science behind everything that happened that time.”

Ranbir Kapoor on ‘Ramayana’ visual effects and AI

In the film, Ranbir Kapoor plays Rama, and he also weighed in on the idea that big-budget visual effects are the work of AI, pointing out the human labour involved in each frame. “You know, one really feels bad when someone releases something and people call it AI. Actually there are thousands of people tirelessly working for days and hours to get one frame right. There is a lot of hard work that goes into bringing the finesse in the CGI,” he said.

‘Ramayana’ cast and release date

‘Ramayana’ is being made as a two-part adaptation, with Ranbir playing Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Yash as Ravana. The first part is set to arrive on Diwali 2026, and the second is planned for 2027.