April 28th On this day 11 years ago a film in the combination of Mahesh Babu and Puri Jagannadh was released. It went on to create storm at box office and eventually ended up becoming an Industry Hit and broke all the previously held records. It was the first Telugu film to cross 40 Cr at the box office. Pokiri turned Mahesh Babu into Superstar and there has been no looking back since.
The combination was repeated again for another successful film Businessman. Soon the star and dashing director will be teaming up for another film to complete hat-trick which Puri already announced as Jana Gana Mana.
Pokiri was released on 28 April 2006, to positive critical feedback, and collected a distributor's share of ₹420 million. The film grossed ₹660 million worldwide and remained the highest-grossing Telugu film for three years, The film was also one of the fourteen southern Indian films to be screened at the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) Film festival in 2006. The film won four Nandi Awards and two Film-fare Awards along with several other awards.
The film was remade into Tamil as Pokkiri in 2007 with Vijay and Asin. Hindi as Wanted in 2009 with Salman Khan and Ayesha Takia. In 2010, remade in Kannada as Porki by M. V. Sridhar with Darshan and Pranitha Subhash. Bengali Rajotto in 2014 with Shakib Khan and Boby as lead roles.
The film completed a 100-day run in 200 centers and a 175-day run in 63 centres, 200-day run in 15 centres, and a 365-day run at a theater in Kurnool, becoming the first Telugu film to do so after a long decade. The film was screened in Bhagiratha theatre, Kurnool for 500 days at the rate of four shows per day and collected a share of ₹6 million In its lifetime, Pokiri grossed ₹660 million and collected a distributor share of ₹420 million at the global box office.
