Back in the early 2000s, Puri Jagannadh was Telugu cinema's biggest commercial director. He was busy making movies back-to-back, finishing scripts at a breakneck speed.
Andhrawala, starring Jr NTR in the lead, was made amid massive hype. However, the movie flopped badly. This failure ended a potential collaboration between Chiranjeevi and Puri.
Even before Andhrawala's arrival, Puri was planning a film titled Sri Krishnudu From Surabhi Company with the Megastar. It is probable that Chiru didn't have confidence in Puri's ability to handle commercial entertainers and asked him to drop the idea. It's also probable that Puri himself voluntarily withdrew his plan because he didn't want to approach Chiru after a BO flop like Andhrawala.
Ten years later, when Chiranjeevi was looking for his 150th comeback film, Puri Jagannadh’s name came up again with a project titled Auto Johnny. Many fans and industry insiders often link the Surabhi Company title to this later period of discussions. Auto Johnny was never made because Chiru preferred to remake Vijay's 2014 Tamil blockbuster action-drama film Kaththi.
