India, July 15 -- For years, Titanic had been the most expensive film in the world. It had a budget of just over $200 million. Around that time, the most expensive Indian films had budgets not exceeding $10 million ( Rs.36-40 crore at the exchange rate of the time). The chasm was wide. With the growth of Indian cinema, that gap has reduced. Today, the most expensive Indian film - Kalki 2898 AD - has a reported budget of over $70 million ( Rs.600 crore), which is not far off from the $447 million cost of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the world's most expensive film.

But if we go by one filmmaker's word, the hierarchy is set to change. An Indian film is being mounted on a scale so massive that even Avatar and Avengers will feel small in co...