When 'Pokiri' was 'Wanted' all over Indian film industry

Uttam Singh S/o Satyanarayana' …. This was the original name with which the monstrous hit of 2006 'Pokiri' was conceptualised by its director, Puri Jagannadh. The helmsman was just then recovering from the disaster of his previous film ' Andhrawala' starring NTR Jr and his next release ' Super' too with Akkineni Nagarjuna in the lead, released in 2005, did not help him much.

Made on a budget of Rs 12 crore jointly between the companies of Puri Jagannadh and Mahesh Babu's sister Manjula Ghattamaneni, the crime thriller with a twist and thrust in the climax went on to top the BO charts by collecting more than five times its investment, which stood at Rs 66 crore.

The magnum opus, which Jagannadh could never repeat once again in the next 15 years since, held many records all over the undivided state of Andhra Pradesh then. With such an impressive background to its credit, it moved from Tollywood to Bollywood three years later.

Prabhu Deva helmed it in Hindi after successfully attempting the Tamil remake with Vijay and Asin in the lead in 2007, giving the lead pair a huge lift in the industry. His hero was Salman Khan, who was going through a mixed phase at the BO. Yet, the faithful reproduction of the original and Salman's rough and tough approach made the film a major appeal.

With Ayesha Takia as his lead, the film got an ' A' certificate like the Telugu original for its violence, making it the only second film of Sallu Bhai to be classified thus. Interestingly, the film got great ratings from the critics who never had good words for Salman's flicks. One of them wrote that the film will run only on ' Salman's star power' which is what ultimately happened. Prakash Raj got a repeat role from the Telugu version in Hindi which gave him the credit of having been featured in all the three versions it was made in the first three years. The film's draw was such that despite officially being remade, the regional versions of Telugu, Tamil and Kannada were still dubbed and released across Hindi satellite channels.