His debut film Badri was not a big blockbuster but came to be remembered for the antics of Power Star Pawan Kalyan. After a brief hiatus, Puri Jagannath however struck gold with a string of hits.

The quirkiness in the storyline and the refreshingly ticklish one-liners instantly became Puri’s USP in his films. But the biggest aspect that the bandwagon of Tollywood heroes were forced to recognise was his portrayal of the lead role.

Puri’s protagonists are essentially idiotic, cranky, rough and brutally frank and bold. Combining with the punch in his dialogues, this genre worked wonders for him. It has made stars out of starlets (read Ravi Teja here) and his Pokiri provided super-stardom for an already established Mahesh Babu.

But ever since Pokiri, the biggest blockbuster in Telugu until it was taken over by Magadheera, Puri’s magic seems to be on the wane. His Bujjigaadu – Made in Chennai, managed to exploit the multi-faceted talent of Prabhas but failed miserably at the box office.

His home production Neninthe could only manage some critical acclaim with a clearly missing public response, something unusual for a Puri Jagannath film. The ace director is never short of work on hand and is currently working on Golimaar with Gopichand.

But of late he is learnt to have realised that his ‘idiotic hero’ formula is becoming too monotonous and hence wants to dabble with other genres, either comedy or suspense thriller.

Perhaps it is a sensible move, considering the fact that this is a compulsion that haunted every film-maker. Even successful directors like Dasari Narayana Rao and K Raghavendra Rao changed their course and tried new genres to prolong their longevity. Krishna Vamsi is the other, who makes it a point to shift between different styles in search of freshness.

So it might work the same for Puri knowing his talent as an equally good story and dialogue writer. Let’s keep our fingers crossed to see an out-and-out comedy from him soon!