After his film Aathi in January 2006, for nearly six months Vijay was listening to stories, but none had appealed.
Vijay was supposed to do a Tamil version of Dharani's Bangaram first, until that film's failure made him look at other optionsThat's when he got to watch the Telugu Pokiri, starring Mahesh Babu, he felt that it would work.After difficulty in finding directors, Prabhudeva was selected as director, directing his first film in Tamil after the failure of his Telugu film PournamiThe movie was launched on 6 July 2006.Asin was signed up as the female lead, pairing with Vijay for the second time after Sivakasi. The character was played by Ileana DCruz in the original.The first day of shoot for the film was held at the new Pillayar Kovil at AVM studios, with various dignitaries gracing the occasion.Vijay's mother Shobha Chandrasekhar gave the clap for the first shot.The first scene shot was with Asin and Vijay, the lead pair in the film, in an elevator that was specially designed for the film.The soundtrack has 8 songs composed by Mani Sharma. Two of the songs from the original Telugu version were retained and remade in Tamil.The soundtrack also features a remix of the song 'Vasantha Mullai' from Sarangadhara (1958).The film was released for Pongal 2007, alongside Ajith's Aalwar and Vishal's Thaamirabharani.The film was distributed by Aascar Films.Pokkiri grossed 6.1 crore in Tamil Nadu in opening week from 142 screens.The film was commercial success and ran over 200 days in Tamil Nadu, and 100 days in Kerala.The original Telugu film Pokiri, directed by Puri Jagannadh, was remade in several other languages and still found success in the respective regional cinemas. Pokkiri is the first remake.The second one was Wanted, the Hindi version in 2009. Both Pokkiri and Wanted were directed by Prabhu Deva.Prakash Raj reprises his role as the villain in both the remakes.A Kannada remake, Porki, directed by M. D. Sridhar, was released in 2010.A Urdu version titled Wanted Target also got made.Despite the Hindi remake, the Telugu film Pokiri, its Tamil remake Pokkiri and Kannada remake Porki were dubbed in Hindi as Tapori Wanted, Wanted Baghi (2013) and Main Hoon Wanted (2012) respectively.A dialogue spoken by Vadivelu in the film, 'Vada Poche' became very popular.The dialogue inspired a comedy show in Sun Music with same nameThe dialogue, Vada Poche, also inspired a song sung by Velmurugan and Powerstar Srinivasan in Arya Surya (2013)