Faced with intense competition from rising band of General Entertainment Channels, Star Plus is sprucing up itself and launching new shows and formats.

And in a bid to woo back audiences, Star Plus is following the tried and tested concept of airing religious epics, just as has recently been observed with NDTV Imgaine’s Ramayan.

The new ‘Mahabharata’ will be produced by Bobby Bedi who has earlier made movies such as ‘Bandit Queen’, ‘Maqbool’ and ‘Mangal Pandey - The Rising’. It is being directed by Chandraprakash Dwivedi of ‘Chanakya’ fame.

To further widen the portfolio, Bobby Bedi would even produce three films, two stage plays, comic books, animation films and games based on the world’s biggest epic.

The first Mahabharata was shown on Doordarshan from 1998-90 and was produced by B.R. Chopra and directed by Ravi Chopra.

The new Mahabharata would be more technologically advanced and would have better style, graphics, animation and design thus appealing to a wider section of audience, even in foreign countries.

And when it comes to success of venture, it would be very tough to write it off, considering the scale the serial is being made.