Kaththi is the second collaboration of actor Vijay and director AR Murugadoss. Their first film, Thuppaaki went on to become a blockbuster.
The film was earlier rumoured to be titled Dheeran. Another reported title was Vaa.The budget of the film was 70 crores.The smoking and drinking disclaimer was not featured before the opening credits, as there were no smoking or drinking scenes in the film.The lyricist and singer of the song 'Pakkam Vanthu', Hiphop Tamizha Aadhi, makes a cameo appearance in the same song in the movie.Controversies surrounded the film's release as the producer, Subhaskaran, was believed to be linked with the Sri Lankan president, Mahindra Rajapaksa.The producer, however denied it and the problem was resolved when the producer decided to remove his name off the promos and the film.The fight scenes in kaththi, especially the coin fight is banned in countries like malaysia due to its violence.Kaththi is the debut Tamil film of Bollywood actor Neil Nitin Mukesh. He had also dubbed for the film in his own voice.Kaththi is the debut Tamil film of Bollywood actor Neil Nitin Mukesh. He had also dubbed for the film in his own voice.Neil was inspired by his look in his début film, Johnny Gaddaar (2007). Neil had lost weight for the role and modelled his looks to be 'along the lines of Brad Pitt and David Beckham.'A huge set which costed around ₹12.5 million was constructed at the Pushpa gardens in Chenna and most of the indoor scenes were completed in this set.The film's climax sequence was shot in Nellore.Bengali actor Tota Roy Chowdhury was signed for portraying the antagonist role, an international gangster named Vivek Banerjee.Kaththi became the first collaboration between Viijay and Anirudh, after Murugadoss replaced his usual music director Harris Jayaraj with Anirudh Ravichander.Anirudh composed the theme music four days after signing the film, which was featured in the digital first look poster.Bollywood music director Vishal Dadlani sang a track, Aathi, for Kaththi.The song, Selfie Pulla, was entirely shot in London.The Paalam song was not included in the film's final cut.On 28 January 2015, to celebrate 100 days of Kaththi, the crew released the background music in a jukebox format on YouTube.The first-look motion poster drew comparisons with the popular minute-long advertisement run by a Turkish newspaper, Sabah, to announce their distribution of the New York Times as a supplement.An action sequence, involving a bag of coins in pitch darkness, was said to have been inspired from the 1974 Hollywood film, Black Belt Jones.An action sequence, involving a bag of coins in pitch darkness, was said to have been inspired from the 1974 Hollywood film, Black Belt Jones.In one of the scenes, the villain asks one of the MNC owners to open FaceTime in his iPhone. He opens the camera application instead. This was a goof.Minjur Gopi Nayinar filed a case against Murugadoss, claiming that the plot of the film was copied from his novel Mootha Kudi. Responding to the issue, ARM said that he was not aware of Gopi's script.Kaththi collected 100 crores in just 12 days, thus making it the fourth Tamil film to cross 100 crores at the box office after Rajinikanth's Endhiran, Sivaji, and Thuppaakki.Incidentaly, Kaththi was also the first tamil movie to enter elite 100 crore-club with a single language release alone.Despite having Telugu Dubbed version, the film was remade in Telugu as Khaidi No. 150 (2017), directed by V. V. Vinayak and starring Chiranjeevi, which is Chiru's 150th filmKaththi, dubbed into Hindi as Khaki Aur Khiladi, had a TV release on Zee Cinema on 13 December 2017, with Vijay's voice dubbed by Shanoor Mirza.Kaththi is set to be remade in Hindi as Ikka (2021),