At a time when his contemporaries are competing with younger generation heroes, senior hero Venkatesh has surprisingly slowed down. For the past four years, he has been taking lengthy sabbaticals after each release. Its been five months since the release of his last film, ‘Guru’ and Venky hasn’t yet taken a call on his next film.

As per our reliable sources, Venky wants to work with director Puri Jagannath, who is credited the most for giving makeovers to the actors he works with. Venky too is keen on an image makeover and hence he has been looking forward to working with Puri.

In fact, before announcing ‘Paisa Vasool’ with Balayya, Puri held rounds of story discussions with Venky. The project however didn’t materialize. Some reports said that it was because of the budget constraints and others blamed the half-baked scripts that Puri allegedly narrates. The crazy director’s track record in the last two years was another reason why the project was nipped in the bud itself.

Venky however has still set his eyes on Puri only. He is currently waiting for the result of Paisa Vasool. If Puri can score a hit with the Balayya starrer, then his chances of directing Venky will better as the actor is already keen to work with him.

The biggest hurdle for the materialization of this project is Suresh Babu, who believes in story more than anything else. He doesn’t give his green signal to any project unless he was satisfied with the bound script, however big the director is. Notwithstanding the result of ‘Paisa Vasool’, Puri will have to convince Suresh Babu, and it won’t be as easy as convincing Balayya.