Thanks to well-known sound engineer Srinivasa Rao, popularly known as Pappu, fans are set to hear James in Puneeth Rajkumar’s voice. The updated version with Puneeth’s voice will be out from April 22.

Director Chethan Kumar explains, “Post Baahubali, Srinivasa Rao, along with his team, has been doing research on how to bring in voice transmission of the actors in multilingual films. Telugu actor Meka Srikanth mentioned to us about Pappu, whom we got in touch with, and then we provided him 15 hours of Appu’s vocal footage. Based on the voice, along with the reference of Shivarajkumar’s dubbing track, he has managed to recreate Appu’s voice. We got the output on Saturday, and James with Appu’s voice has turned out very well,” says Chethan, who adds that this is a first-of-its-kind innovation in world cinema.

James, which was released post the untimely demise of Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar, also featured his brothers Shivarajkumar and Raghavendra Rajkumar in cameos.

Bankrolled by Kishore Pathikonda, James had music scored by Charan Raj and cinematography by J Swamy. With Priya Anand sharing screen space opposite Puneeth, the film also features Shine Shetty, Ugramm-fame Tilak, Chikanna, Srikanth Meka, Mukesh Rishi, Aditya Menon, Anu Prabhakar, Rangayana Raghu, Harsha, and Suchendra Prasad in pivotal roles.