The Navratri first look of Maha Devi Adishakti – The Legend of Maa Durga sets up an animated feature that is placing a deliberate bet: in a content environment increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, its imagery will be drawn by hand.
Artha Entertainment and Animation unveiled the project under producer Gaurav Malhotra, directed by Milind Nandanwar and written by author-screenwriter Akshat Gupta. The film is scheduled for a worldwide theatrical release in February 2027.
A mythological span, made for families
The film moves across the Divine Mother’s forms, including Mahishasuramardini and Kali. Its stated aim is to bring these stories to children and families without stripping away their traditional weight.
Malhotra frames the film as a bridge between generations.
“We grew up watching devotional television serials and reading books that shaped our understanding of our culture and traditions.”
His argument is that children now consume content differently, so the format has to change while the essence stays intact.
Manual animation as a differentiator
The clearest signal is the team size. More than 150 animators are working on the film, and the makers are foregrounding that it is a handcrafted process. At a moment when AI-assisted production is becoming a cost conversation, the project is making its labour visible.
By naming the animator count, the announcement moves attention away from a celebrity cast or a VFX shortcut and toward labour. That is unusual in a category where animation is often discussed as technical spectacle rather than craft.
- Directed by Milind Nandanwar; written by Akshat Gupta.
- Produced by Gaurav Malhotra under Artha Entertainment and Animation.
- Music by Shreyas Puranik.
- Worldwide release planned for February 2027.
Director Milind Nandanwar described the project as both a privilege and a responsibility.
“We feel divinely blessed that Maa chose us as her medium to bring her story to her children.”
Why the release date matters
February 2027 gives the production room to build an audience beyond the Navratri announcement. The makers are not tying the film to a single festival window; the lead time allows the hand-drawn story to be sold as a slow-building family property. The next test is whether the trailer and music extend that pitch to a wider audience.
The absence of detailed distribution or casting information in the first announcement is not unusual this far out. The makers are leading with production philosophy and cultural promise, leaving commercial detail to later windows.
For Hindi cinema, mythology has long been a theatrical mainstay. An animated version that foregrounds manual craft is a quiet counter-move: it asks whether audiences will value visible human effort as part of the spectacle.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
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