Puri Jagannadh: The man who launched everyone else’s career is now trying to relaunch his own - The Indian Express

There was a time, and it was not that long ago, when the safest bet in Telugu cinema was a Puri Jagannadh film. You knew what you were getting. A hero with swagger, a heroine who showed up somewhere around the 20-minute mark, a villain who existed to be humiliated and dialogues that sounded like they were written in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette. And somewhere in the middle of all that formula, a moment of genuine, electric, undeniable cinema that reminded you why this man was once considered the most naturally gifted commercial filmmaker in South India.

However, that time is gone. What remains is a filmography of over 33 films across 26 years, two consecutive disasters that left distributors filing cases, an upcoming film with Vijay Sethupathi, and a question that nobody in Telugu cinema wants to ask out loud but everybody is thinking: what happened to Puri Jagannadh?

To understand how far Puri Jagannadh has fallen, you have to understand how high he once stood. And the clearest measure of that height is not his box office numbers but the careers he created.

It started with Puneeth Rajkumar. In 2002, Puri directed Appu, a Kannada-language action romantic comedy that served as the acting debut of Puneeth, the youngest son of Kannada cinema legend Dr Rajkumar. The film was a blockbuster in Karnataka and launched Puneeth into a career that would make him one of Kannada cinema’s biggest stars until his untimely death in 2021 at the age of 46. Puri then remade the same film in Telugu as Idiot with Ravi Teja, which became a phenomenon in its own right and was subsequently remade across multiple Indian languages. One film, two industries, two hits, two careers shaped.

In 2005, a yoga instructor named Sweety Shetty walked onto the set of Super, a Nagarjuna-starrer directed by Puri Jagannadh. She had no acting experience, or no industry connections. Puri and Nagarjuna looked at her, decided “Sweety” would not work as a film name and rechristened her Anushka. Anushka Shetty went on to become the most commercially successful actress in the history of South Indian cinema, anchoring the Baahubali franchise and earning the title “Queen of South Indian Cinema.”

In 2007, Chiranjeevi’s son needed a launchpad. The biggest star in Telugu cinema chose Puri Jagannadh to direct his heir’s debut. Ram Charan’s first film was Chirutha, an action drama set partly in Bangkok that established the young actor as a credible screen presence. Fifteen years later, Ram Charan would stand on the Oscar stage with RRR.

In the same year, a 15-year-old actress from Mumbai named Hansika Motwani made her Telugu debut in Puri Jagannadh’s Desamuduru opposite Allu Arjun. The film was a blockbuster. Hansika went on to become one of the most prominent actresses in Tamil and Telugu cinema for the next decade.

In 2003, a Tamil actress named Asin appeared in Puri Jagannadh’s Sivamani opposite Nagarjuna, her Telugu debut, along with Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi opposite Ravi Teja. She would later star in Ghajini with Aamir Khan and become one of Bollywood’s highest-paid actresses.

In 2009, Kangana Ranaut, who had been working in Hindi cinema since Gangster but had not yet achieved mainstream stardom, appeared in Puri’s Ek Niranjan opposite Prabhas. It was her Telugu debut.

Puri Jagannadh also launched Renu Desai in Badri, Rakshitha in Idiot and Aditi Arya in later films, while introducing non-Telugu actresses like Ameesha Patel, Disha Patani, Neha Shetty and Ketika Sharma to Tollywood. His son, Akash Puri, debuted as a child artist in Chirutha before transitioning to lead roles.

For nearly a decade, Puri Jagannadh was the man the industry sent its children, its debutants and its biggest gambles to. He was the launchpad. If he directed your first film, you were taken seriously. If he cast you opposite a star, your career was real. No other Telugu director of his generation had this reputation, not even close.

Puri Jagannadh’s directorial career began as an assistant to Ram Gopal Varma, working on Telugu action films including Shiva. That apprenticeship gave him an education in pacing, attitude and the art of making violence feel casual rather than choreographed. He absorbed Varma’s instinct for economy, the ability to tell a story with the minimum number of scenes necessary, and applied it to a very different kind of cinema: the Telugu commercial entertainer.

His breakthrough came with Badri, starring Pawan Kalyan, which started slow but quickly became a blockbuster and established Puri Jagannadh as a director to watch. He followed it with Itlu Sravani Subramanyam and then the one-two punch that made his name permanent: Appu in Kannada, launching Puneeth Rajkumar, and its Telugu remake Idiot with Ravi Teja, which became a phenomenon.

From there, the streak was relentless: Amma Nanna O Tamil Ammayi, Sivamani, Pokiri with Mahesh Babu, Chirutha, Desamuduru, Bujjigadu, Ek Niranjan with Prabhas, Businessman with Mahesh Babu and Temper with Jr NTR.

Pokiri, in particular, stands as perhaps the most influential commercial Telugu film of the 2000s. The Mahesh Babu-starrer created a template for the Telugu mass hero film that every director after Puri Jagannadh has borrowed from, consciously or not. The attitude, the punchlines, the hero introduction, the casual violence, the love track that exists purely to give the hero someone to protect, these were all Puri inventions that became the default grammar of Telugu commercial cinema.

The decline did not happen overnight. It crept in gradually, disguised by the occasional hit that made it easy to believe Puri was still the same filmmaker.

After Temper, which remains his last critical and commercial success, the cracks began to show. Jyothi Lakshmi, ISM, Rogue, Paisa Vasool and Mehbooba, all underperformed or flopped outright. The scripts, which had always been formulaic but energetic, started feeling repetitive without the energy. The dialogue, once his sharpest weapon, began to feel like self-parody. The heroines, who had always been underwritten but at least memorably presented, became interchangeable.

Later, iSmart Shankar with Ram Pothineni provided a reprieve. The mass action entertainer collected over Rs 100 crore and suggested Puri Jagannadh could still connect with the audience that had loved him. But the film was more a reminder of what Puri used to do than evidence that he could still do it consistently. Then came Liger with Vijay Deverakonda.

Liger, starring Vijay Deverakonda, was supposed to be Puri Jagannadh’s pan-India breakout. Produced by Dharma Productions and Puri Connects, the film was a bilingual Telugu-Hindi production about an MMA fighter with a stammering problem. Mike Tyson appeared in a cameo. The marketing was massive and the ambition was enormous. However, the result was catastrophic.

Liger was panned universally. The box office collapsed after the first day. Distributors across territories, who had paid premium prices for rights based on the Vijay Deverakonda-Puri Jagannadh-Karan Johar combination, were left with massive losses.

Two years later, Puri returned with Double iSmart, a sequel to iSmart Shankar starring Ram Pothineni. The result was worse.

The financial fallout from two consecutive disasters has left Puri Jagannadh in a position that would have been unimaginable during his peak years. According to multiple industry reports, Telangana exhibitors have filed cases against the director over unpaid dues.

Meanwhile, Puri has completed shooting Slumdog: 33 Temple Road, a film starring Vijay Sethupathi in the lead.