Development

Early in 2008, Rajnikanth signed up for S. Shankar's Robot, making it highly unlikely he would sign up to another film for a couple of years, due to Shankar's tendency to take two years shooting his films. However, in a sudden turn of events, Kuselan was launched at the Taj Coromandel in Chennai on January 14, 2008 coinciding with Pongal.[2] The director, P. Vasu signed up Rajnikanth and Pasupathy to portray the lead roles, while noted director K. Balachandar agreed to produce the Tamil version of the film alongside Seven arts Productions, while Aswani Dutt agreed to produce the film in Telugu with Rajnikanth and Jagapati Babu in the lead roles.[3] The film was announced to be remake of Malayalam film, Katha Parayumbol which was written and starred in by Sreenivasan, whilst Mammooty essayed a guest role in the film.