Vijay Subramaniam on reimagining Mahabharat with AI

In the bustling world of Indian entertainment, where big dreams often meet even bigger budgets, Vijay Subramaniam, Founder and Group CEO of Collective Artists Network, is mixing the worlds of ancient lore and cutting-edge technology. His latest and most ambitious project, ‘Mahabharat Ek Dharmayudha’, an Artificial Intelligence-enabled spectacle that’s now streaming on Jio Cinema, is not just a retelling of India’s epic saga. Subramaniam’s Mahabharat is a declaration of intent. It’s about securing India’s rightful place in the global content narrative by making our mythology palatable to a new generation. In a special interview for Mint's Rollin' with the Boss, Subramaniam speaks to Abhishek Singh, Deputy Editor, LiveMint about the conception of this epic saga, his personal life and drivers, and what we can expect in the coming years.

Watch the full episode below,

The genesis of the AI-powered epic

The inspiration for the AI-driven Mahabharat came from a simple, yet audacious comparison. The son of an army officer, Subramaniam, has a strong sense of pride for the nation. He was driven by a core vision. “It came from an absolute core place of seeing Game of Thrones and saying, why can’t we have something of that production quality?” he said. He observed a fundamental disconnect – the land with the world’s richest folklore, mythology, and history existed was not commanding the global attention it deserved. This gap, he realised, stemmed largely from the prohibitive costs of production, where traditional storytelling methods would require thousands of crores to achieve the grandeur of a show like BR Chopra’s original Mahabharat.

His mission was clear. He wanted to marry India’s glorious past with modern technological prowess. “I knew I won’t have $100 million to make it. I had two underlying principles of the history verse of which Mahabharat is the first cut. I need to get the Gen Z and young millennials to fall in love with our culture as much as they do with a Thor or an Iron Man or an Avenger. Why? Because I believe that Hanuman’s gada is stronger than Thor’s hammer,” he further said.

The result is a visually magnificent show where the divinity of the original text, meticulously credited “as written in the works of Ved Vyas”, is maintained, but the visual treatment is completely transformed. Technology helped create the largest spectacle possible with beautiful war scenes, an immaculate Hastinapur and real-looking costumes and jewellery. All of this was achieved in six months and at a fraction (100th) of the usual cost.

The influence of the early years: Music and the army

Subramaniam’s journey to becoming a pioneer in the entertainment industry has its roots in music. A heavy metal head and a first-class engineering student, he found his true calling outside the lab and behind a drum kit. His band, Signaps, even gave him the lifetime opportunity to open for the metal legends Iron Maiden after winning the Campus Rock Idols competition. “I think I would still put it right up there in the top five days of my life,” he said.

Yet, when the band disbanded, his army-instilled loyalty prevented him from joining another. Instead of pursuing an engineering career, a path he ‘sucked at’, he spotted a new opportunity in the absence of professional, visionary talent agents in the industry. This led him to the world of sports management, initially working with tennis legend Mahesh Bhupathi’s Global Sport Management, before founding Quan and eventually leading the Collective Artists Network. When asked if he is happy with his decision of not pursuing a career as an engineer, he said: “I think money comes but I think fundamentally I keep telling people that for me my biggest blessing is that I can't wait for a Monday.”

Subramaniam’s personal philosophy is deeply rooted in his upbringing in the military cantonments, which taught him the “ridiculous ideal of loyalty” and the concept of “family by choice, not family by birth”. These principles guide everything he does, from his refusal to play with another band after Signaps broke up to his belief that he will run no other company than Collective. He lives by an “all in or nothing” approach, valuing emotional validation above all.

“I have chased the emotional validation of it first,” he said, believing that feeling good about one's work will naturally lead to social relevance and wealth. This philosophy extends to his clear view on prosperity: “Wealth is not yours alone” – the Collective Artists Network was one of the first in the industry to introduce ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans), demonstrating his commitment to sharing success.

On the work side: Dreaming bigger

For Subramaniam, the role of an agent goes far beyond coordination. it is about visionary career building. “If you don’t dream a dream for your talent which occasionally could even surpass their dream for themselves, then you are not an agent,” he said. He believes in building careers over a 10-15 year span, not for immediate gains. The single most important quality he looks for in a prospective client is an insatiable appetite for success.

Talent, in creative fields, he believes, is “overrated” unless it is backed by an unwavering will and the infrastructure to move it forward. He posits a compelling theory on the evolving landscape of stardom: “The big will become bigger. The middle will become small, and the small will disappear”. He points to artists like Deepika Padukone as an example of an ‘unforgettable’ superstar whose stature and reach are only growing.

Bringing in the AI revolution

As a front-runner in this new AI-driven creative space, Subramaniam has a clear perspective on the technology’s impact, especially in light of the growing debate around jobs and regulations. He sees AI as the latest in a long line of technological disruptions, whether it was the automobile displacing chariots to the iPhone replacing Kodak. His argument hinges on the need for the Indian media business to evolve beyond its “shallow” stock and valuation metrics by making content faster, cheaper and better. Technology is the only way to validate this triple hypothesis.

So, will AI take away jobs meant for humans? He refuted this fear by talking about his team for Mahabharat that included a first-time director, Lavanya from Whistling Woods, a first-time editor and music director, a young writers’ room and about 50 engineers. “Have I given jobs or have I taken jobs?” he asked.

Technology has simply given the director the tools to dream bigger – to imagine Hastinapur in a certain way, or to convincingly place a thousand soldiers on the Kurukshetra battlefield. Subramaniam is using AI to create spectacles from public, open-source IPs like Mahabharat, demonstrating that the medium is changing, but the matter, such as the quality of writing and editing, remains irreplaceable.

Mahabharat is merely the curtain-raiser for a much larger universe. Subramaniam intends to emulate the Marvel model, building an entire interconnected world. In the near future, one can expect a line-up of theatrical releases.

“Second of April, we come out with a theatrical release of Hanuman. Then, we have Krishna, then we have Shiva, then we are producing three more series. For me, the idea is to build this entire universe in a way that is not just the movie. You will have merchandising, you will have toys, you will have the entire works around it,” he said.

For Vijay Subramaniam, the future of Indian content is a blend of the ancient and the futuristic, a testament to his belief that our culture’s stories are stronger than any Hollywood fantasy, provided they are told with the visual grandeur that this new generation demands.

Note to Readers: Rollin' with the Boss is a Mint editorial series. Lexus is the Luxury Partner.