When they were planning their next film, they approached Raghavendra Rao to work for them, whom they already knew as an assistant director as he just started taking up direction independently. NTR had already given them dates in September 1976. At that time, Rajkumar's movie Gandhada Gudi, made with a forest backdrop, went on to be a super hit in Kannada. This prompted the team to suggest that Jandhyala Subramanya Sastry should work on the script and dialogues based on a forest backdrop.