Nag Ashwin gets trolled for saying he had a movie idea ‘similar to Inception’: ‘Like Govinda in Avatar?’

Director Nag Ashwin who recently directed Kalki 2898 AD revealed in an interview that he was ‘depressed for a week’ after seeing Inception's trailer.

Christopher Nolan’s Inception is an iconic film that will forever remain in the pop culture zeitgeist. Kalki 2898 AD director Nag Ashwin revealed in an interview recently that he had a ‘similar idea to Inception’ and that he was ‘depressed for a week’ after he saw the film’s trailer. The internet was tickled pink by his claim, cracking jokes on the director. (Also Read: Nag Ashwin gives major update on Prabhas, Deepika, Amitabh Bachchan's Kalki 2898 AD sequel: ‘It will have more of…’)

Nag Ashwin said he thought of a story like Christopher Nolan's Inception in 2007-8.

What did Nag Ashwin say?

In a session hosted by Gulte, Nag was asked how difficult it was to come up with an original idea in the age of the internet. He replied, “A lot of us write something, and a few months later, we see a trailer with the same idea or concept. You lose steam.”

He then brought up inception and added, “I had an idea in 2007 or 2008 that was not the same but similar to Inception. But I was writing about memories, and that was about dreams. Once I saw the trailer, I was depressed for a week. You can’t control originality, and there’s no point chasing it. It’s important to be authentic rather than original.”

Internet reacts to Nag Ashwin’s statement

People were not convinced by Nag’s claim that he was knocked sideways by the Inception trailer because he had a similar idea. One X (formerly Twitter) user wrote, “Just like govinda was supposed to play in Avatar? Yeah ok.” Another wrote, “Ever heard of Paprika which came out in 2006, based on the 1993 novel of the same name? Inception movie was inspired by this movie which later came out in 2010. So Nag Ashwin probably watched this Anime movie, and got the idea in 2008 but couldn't implement it.”

A Reddit user joked, “I read about Govinda vs Cameroon but this is next level. He has beaten Varun Dhawan saying dilwale is better than inception.” Another asked, “Prabhas DiCaprio ko hero lega kya (Will Prabhas DiCaprio be the hero?)” Some even made memes about how Nag must’ve reacted after watching Inception trailer. One X user wrote, “Wow eeyana thoughts inception range nunchi kalki ki padipoyaya? (Wow so his thoughts fell from Inception to Kalki?)”

Nag Ashwin’s filmography

Nag debuted as a director in 2015 with the coming-of-age drama Yevade Subramanyam, starring Nani, Vijay Deverakonda, and Malvika Nair. The film was a success, and in 2018, he made the Savitri biopic Mahanati with Keerthy Suresh. It was a massive hit. He followed that up with the sci-fi film Kalki 2898 AD in 2024, starring Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, and Kamal Haasan. The film collected over ₹1000 crore and is among the highest-grossing Indian films.