Viveik Oberoi in Ram Gopal Varma’s movie Rakta Charitra

Hyderabad, Jan. 18: His films are meant to be fast-paced. Now his filmmaking will be fast-paced.

Ram Gopal Varma has promised to shoot his next film in five days flat, shooting faster than the trigger-happy characters in his gangster films.

If you think five is too low a number for a venture as big as filmmaking, Varma has a “zero” to stun you some more.

His two-hour feature film will be made at “zero cost”. And his entire unit will consist of just eight people.

“Everyone knows that normally a film takes between 100 to 150 days to shoot and more than 150 to 200 people...” the Telugu and Hindi film director has written in his blog.

“The unique thing about the film I am doing with (actor) Ravi Teja is that this two-hour-long feature film will be completed in just 5 days start to finish, with a unit of just 8 people and at a zero cost.”

The maker of greed-and-gore movies claims it’s all for an idealistic cause. He wants to show — with the aid of “certain aspects of present-day technology” — that money doesn’t make a film.

Varma is out to prove “once for all” that “it’s not crores of rupees that we need but it’s just a story which excites all concerned and a desire in all of them to see the film happen”.

Dongala Mutha (Gang of Thieves) will be another crime thriller. Varma says shooting will begin on February 11, just a week after he releases his latest movie, Katha, Screenplay, Darsakatvam: Appalaraju, on February 4. Dongala will be released on March 11.

Varma has explained how the film will be made at “zero cost”.

“No one in this film including the actors, technicians and equipments suppliers are going to be paid any remuneration. It will be made only with those actors and technicians who are excited to be a part of this project,” his blog says.

“All the people who work for this project will only be paid after the release of the film, that is if and only the film makes profits, and those payments will be in accordance with their individual value additions.”

Industry sources are a little sceptical. Some who have seen the script say that even if no one has to be paid, the film would still cost anywhere between Rs 75 lakh and Rs 1 crore.

“There’s the cost of the film (rolls). Add to that the cost of editing and publicity, and the rent of the dubbing studios. If the dubbing studios waive their charges, the film could be made at Rs 65 lakh,” a source said.

As for shooting the film in five days, Varma says he is not trying to get into Guinness World Records though “I won’t mind if they give me the award”.

What he wants to do is set a trend in a Telugu film industry plagued by big budgets, slow shooting and huge losses — the last because of the Telangana agitation.

Varma has never been afraid to experiment: he has made Telugu films without songs or the so-called comedy scenes. He has been a magnet for controversy too.

The biggest of them came perhaps in November 2008 when the then Maharashtra chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, took Varma around the Taj Hotel hours after the end of the terror attacks. Deshmukh had to pay for the mistake with his job.

Varma’s Rakta Charitra-2 was recently in the news when gangster-politician M. Suryanarayana Reddy, whose life inspired the film, was killed by an aide in almost a scene out of the movie.

Dongala Mutha too will be “a highly entertaining Action Thriller”, Varma writes. “Charmi, Ajay and Subba Raju will be playing certain key roles and the rest of the cast is being finalised. Puri Jagan will be co-director and Harish Shanker (Mirapakaya) will be my associate director for this project.”

If some are still sceptical, Varma might throw his autobiography at them. It’s titled Na Ishtam (My Wish).

The director did not invite any VIP to the release of the book last November, choosing to launch it himself. Asked about this, he had said: “It is my book; I will do whatever I want.”