Last month’s Saaho teaser gave cine-goers a peek into the larger-than-life world envisioned by director Sujeeth for Bahubali star Prabhas’ next. It took two years for production designer Sabu Cyril to create the universe for the film set to hit theatres on August 30.

Prabhas, we hear, was keen on having Cyril on the team and the National Award-winning production designer took eight trips to Abu Dhabi for the job. Taking a cue from the makers of the Batman series, who have created Gotham City, Sujeeth and Cyril designed a fictional city, modelled on Abu Dhabi. A team of 300 artists were hand-picked and as the Abu Dhabi skyline served as the blueprint, Cyril and the VFX team gave it a futuristic spin with spiral buildings and neo-futurist architecture. Sujeeth has left no stone unturned in bringing the best international technicians on board; the production itself has cost Rs 65 crore.

Cyril said: “Our movies have never seen something like this. We recreated this set-up in Abu Dhabi because of geographical availability and advantages in a bigger space.”