Once upon a time, the concept of cinematic universe was alien to the realm of Indian Cinema. But how the tables have turned now! All the cinephiles are super-excited to witness the Indian Cinema finally embrace the concept of universes, opening doors to new and exciting possibilities of crossovers! Let us analyze this gradual yet iconic shift of presenting narratives by utilizing the possibilities of cinematic universes and how it all started.

Storytelling is an art that has no bounds. A filmmaker’s choice of narration is as far as his imagination goes. It is when the filmmakers and investors started to acknowledge the ambitious concept of cinematic universes, a new dimension of cinema started to emerged in India. People were already familiar with the concept of cinematic universes and the high it offered from Marvel Studios. As they were awestruck with the meticulous planning involved in planning the universes till the very end of it in the future, Indian Cinema too was getting ready to embrace the trend. We guess it all started with Mani Ratnam when he planned the ‘Roja’ series. Even though a trilogy, it can be taken as a starting point of what we now term as cinematic universe.

Slowly, the trend of making sequels and prequels became prevalent. Movies like Dhoom, Gangs of Wasseypur, CBI Series in Malayalam, all the way to Baahubali were planned solid on this concept of interlinked movies. It gradually paved way of iconic characters appearing for a short time in different movies to make an impact. But who lunched the full-fledged trend of clear cinematic universe like that of MCU in India? The answer will be Lokesh Kanagaraj.
The bank employee turned filmmaker made a dream debut with Managaram which was critically as well as generally received well. Though with no big star-cast, the intrinsic story discussed became a head-turner for Lokesh and made him land the dream limelight of cinema. The second work of Lokesh, Kaithi became a blockbuster in no time. The character arc of Dilli in Kaithi and the power packed action-sequences turned him to be a wanted filmmaker in no time. It is this fame that landed him Thalapathy Vijay’s dates which resulted in Master. Everything was well and good till now. But Lokesh had something crazy down his sleeves. In his next installment, Vikram, he let the hell go loose.

Lokesh, with a well planned approach, was cooking a universe behind the veil. He brought in the occurrences of Kaithi in Vikram and ended it with a banger, launching it as the first proper cinematic universe of India. The tail end of Vikram made people to yearn for more – a phenomenon that we are used to witness only with MCU. Without disappointing his fans, Lokesh started giving easter eggs and links to LCU (Lokesh Cinematic Universe) in his upcoming movies as well. With assumptions and fan-theories, LCU is now the most awaited movie universes of India.

What Lokesh started was just a spark. In no time, it got widespread with other makers adapting to this new trend. Gautam Vasudev Menon expressed his wish to make a universe recently and many other makers are already working on the same. Latest entry to this cinemaverse is PCU aka Prashant Varma Universe. Prashant has launched a very interesting and exciting world involving heroes from Hindu mythology, with Hanuman being the first installment. Prashant shared his idea of expanding PCU with movies made on all the 7 Chiranjeevis (immortals) in the Hindu mythology.

Another notable addition to this cinematic universe world is YRF Spy Universe. Yash Raj Films announced Spy Universe with Ek Tha Tiger being the launching movie. Tiger Zinda Hai, War, Pathaan, Tiger 3 are the movies in this universe so far. War 2 is currently shot and another YRF Spyverse movie starring Alia Bhatt will go on floor. Ayan Mukherjee is another director who brought in a unique concept called Astraverse to Indian Cinema with Brahmastra. Ayan’s vision is to make a cinematic universe based on powerful Astras from Hindu mythology. Rohit Shetty joins this Bollywood gang with his trademark cop universe with movies like Singham, Simba, Sooryavanshi, etc. as a part.

The cinematic universe trend, started by Lokesh is now being continued with multiple legendary filmmakers following the trend. Prashant Neel is said to be on works of his own gangster universe. All we can do is eagerly wait for the prowess of cinematic universes to unveil completely and we hope it will be LCU that is going to leverage the full potential of it. It is not only the audience who are enjoying this trend of cinematic universe but the filmmakers as well as they are now independent to explore unlimited possibilities of storytelling which were alien to them before. Maybe someday, Indian Cinema too will witness the mad fan-following for such rooted cinematic universes, were fans fight amongst themselves with interesting theories anticipating eagerly about what will unveil in future!