Mani Ratnam on Sunday said the two-part Ponniyin Selvan could not have been made without S.S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali franchise.

The veteran director, who was attending a promotional event in Hyderabad for his Ponniyin Selvan 2, claimed that the two parts of Baahubali, starring Prabhash, Anushka Shetty, Tamanna and Ramya Krishnan, gave confidence to the entire film industry to explore historical projects.

Speaking ahead of the release of Ponniyin Selvan 2 on April 28, the Bombay director said, “I’d like to thank Subaskaran (producer) sir first. Sir, because of you, Ponniyin Selvan was possible. I’ve said this before and I’m saying this again. I want to thank Rajamouli. If Baahubali was not made. And not made in two parts. Ponniyin Selvan would not have been made. So we owe him a big thanks,”

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“I’ve called Rajamouli, met him and told him this. And I want to say here that it created the path for me to be able to mount Ponniyin Selvan in two parts. It gave confidence to the entire industry to do historical (projects), and he opened a huge passage for a lot of Indian history to be converted into films,” he added.

Based on Kalki Krishnamurthy’s iconic novel on the life of Raja Raja Chozhan, Ponniyin Selvan combines the might of Tamil, Telugu and Hindi industries with actors such as Vikram as Aditya Karikalan, Karthi as Vanthiyathevan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Nandini, Trisha as Kundhavai, Karthi as Vallavaraiyan Vandiyadevan and Jayam Ravi as the titular Arulmozhi Varman.

PS1, which released September 30 last year, grossed over Rs 500 crore globally and emerged as the highest-grossing Tamil film of all time. The film series also features Ashwin Kakumanu, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Sobhita Dhulipala, Sarath Kumar, Prabhu, Vikram Prabhu, Jayaram, Prakash Raj and Riyaz Khan in pivotal roles.

The second part of Mani Ratnam’s historical action-adventure series Ponniyin Selvan will hit cinemas on April 28.