When Baahubali swept through Singapore cinemas in 2015 and 2017, it wasn’t just a blockbuster — it was the kind of cinema event that had everyone from Orchard to Jurong debating why Kattappa killed Baahubali. Now, S.S. Rajamouli’s franchise is returning as a full-length animated feature, and the studio behind the Rebuild of Evangelion films has just signed on to help bring it to life.
Studio Khara, the Japanese animation house founded by Hideaki Anno, confirmed on 25 June 2026 that it is producing a dedicated animated sequence for Baahubali: The Eternal War Part 1 — a two-part anime epic targeting a 2027 worldwide release. The news was first reported by Variety and simultaneously confirmed by Mantan-web (Japanese).
What Is Baahubali: The Eternal War?
The Eternal War is a two-part animated feature set within the world of the original Baahubali films, produced by Arka Mediaworks (Hyderabad) with Shobu Yarlagadda and S.S. Rajamouli serving as producers. The first part targets 2027, with Part 2 following thereafter. The project is already earning serious international attention: it was selected for the prestigious Work in Progress showcase at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which runs June 21–27, 2026 — meaning it screened at one of the world’s top animation festivals this very week.
Arka Mediaworks has described it as carrying “the highest production budget in Indian feature-length animation history.” That alone signals this is a genuine swing, not a licensed cash-in.
The Evangelion Studio Connection
Studio Khara’s involvement is the headline-grabber for anime fans. Founded by Hideaki Anno, Khara is best known for the four-part Rebuild of Evangelion film series — the definitive modern reinterpretation of one of anime’s most iconic franchises. The studio’s style is renowned for its obsessive attention to motion, weight, and visual language in action sequences.
For The Eternal War, Khara will produce a dedicated animated sequence, co-ordinated by the Japanese production company SlowCurve. The creative team on that sequence includes animation director Honma Akira and character designer Ito Noriko. Particularly exciting is the involvement of Mahiro Maeda, whose credits include Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, as a key creative contributor. That pedigree is not window dressing — it suggests Khara’s sequence will carry genuine weight in the final film.
A Convergence of Global Animation Talent
Studio Khara is one node in a much wider network of talent. The main animation studio is 88 Pictures, a global production house that has worked on multiple international animation projects. Visual development is led by Mihira Visual Labs. Variety also reports the broader production draws on artists with credits on Arcane and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — two titles that redefined what prestige animation could look like in the 2020s.
Directing both parts is Ishan Shukla, the Indo-French filmmaker behind a segment of Star Wars: Visions and the acclaimed Indo-French feature Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust. Screenplay is by Scott Mosier. It is genuinely unusual for a single animated project to simultaneously draw in Japanese studio talent of Khara’s calibre alongside Western animation veterans — and that convergence may be precisely what gives The Eternal War its edge.
As director Shukla told Variety: “We are putting steroids into it, because in this world, we can do really whatever we want. It’s like Christmas for us animators.”
The Story — and M.M. Keeravani Returns
Prabhas returns as the voice of Amarendra Baahubali, with Ramya Krishnan reprising Sivagami. Their participation ties the animated film directly to the performances that made the originals work, which should ease any concern about tonal drift.
The story picks up after the murdered prince’s death in the live-action saga and sends him into the afterlife, where he becomes embroiled in an ancient cosmic war between devas and asuras across 14 realms of existence — the lokas of Hindu cosmology. It is a mythological expansion that the original films always gestured toward and never fully explored, and it gives The Eternal War room to build something genuinely new rather than retread familiar ground.
Scoring the film is M.M. Keeravani, who won the Academy Award for Naatu Naatu from Rajamouli’s RRR and composed the original Baahubali score. His return is a major creative anchor: whatever the film looks like, it will sound exactly right.
What Singapore Can Expect
Both parts of the original Baahubali saga had wide theatrical runs in Singapore and were genuine crossover events — not just among Tamil and Telugu-speaking communities, but with mainstream Singaporean audiences who turned up for the sheer spectacle. The Eternal War arrives with an even stronger hand: a legendary anime studio attached, Annecy festival buzz, and Prabhas and Rajamouli’s names behind it. No Singapore theatrical distributor has been confirmed yet — with a 2027 target it is still early days — but we will be tracking this one closely.
In the meantime, the teaser above gives a solid first look at the film’s visual ambition. For more anime film news, browse our Manga & Anime coverage.
