Last Updated:July 29, 2025, 23:18 IST

Shekhar Kapur announces Warlord, a sci-fi series created entirely with AI, featuring organic spaceships and an interdimensional love story.

Shekhar Kapur’s Warlord explores AI-driven storytelling.

Veteran filmmaker Shekhar Kapur is pushing the boundaries of storytelling with Warlord, an ambitious new sci-fi series created entirely using artificial intelligence. The series’ first teaser dropped today, with the full debut episode expected to release in the next two to three months.

Written and conceptualised by Kapur, Warlord tells the tale of an indestructible interdimensional warrior whose life is saved by a lover in a parallel universe every time he’s on the verge of death. “The only time that lover can bring him to her is when he’s absolutely close to death,” Kapur explained in an interview with Variety. “So if the sword hits him, and he’s so close to death, she shifts him to a different dimension, and you might just see the sword going through him, but he’s not there.”

The high-concept narrative revolves around warriors protecting mystical crystals that serve as the foundation of galactic life. These crystals, Kapur says, represent particles even smaller than neutrinos — fleeting entities that “create the universe” but exist for just “a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second.”

Warlord is not just about spectacle; it’s a radical rethinking of how stories are told and shared. Kapur plans to make the show’s production designs and characters available for global creators to use and adapt. The only requirement? Pay a token fee of one cent per use and keep the resulting works open-source. “Great stories can become their own platforms,” Kapur asserts. “They don’t need to be hosted by another platform.”

Produced in collaboration with Studio Blo, a generative AI company founded in Mumbai with operations in Dubai, London, and LA, Warlord boasts cutting-edge visuals. Studio Blo previously worked on music videos like Warner Music India’s “The Heartbreak Chhora” with Ayushmann Khurrana and Music Today’s “Purana Pyar.”

Kartik Shah is on board as composer, while Kapur emphasizes that Warlord’s AI-generated sequences are completed in just two weeks — a process that would traditionally take several months. Visually, the show features unique spaceship designs inspired by jellyfish, created as living, self-healing entities rather than metallic vessels. “In the distant future, we’ll have materials that heal themselves,” he explains.

Best known for Masoom, Mr. India, Bandit Queen, and the Oscar-nominated Elizabeth, Shekhar Kapur is also the current festival director of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI).

While continuing work on his upcoming features Ebony McQueen and Masoom… The New Generation, Kapur is equally focused on empowering the next generation of creators. He’s planning to open a film school in Mumbai’s Dharavi to teach AI-powered filmmaking. “I don’t actually shoot it,” he says of Warlord. “I look after the design. But by the time you come to the end of the first episode, there’ll be people better at it than I am.”

Shrishti Negi

Shrishti Negi is a journalist with over eight years of experience in the media industry. She leads the Entertainment desk at News18.com. She writes breaking news stories, generates feature ideas, edits copies, …Read More

Shrishti Negi is a journalist with over eight years of experience in the media industry. She leads the Entertainment desk at News18.com. She writes breaking news stories, generates feature ideas, edits copies, … Read More

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