Lingusamy first planned Paiyaa as a bilingual, which was meant to be filmed simultaneously in Tamil and Telugu with Karthi and Ram Charan Teja, respectively.
Reportedly, both Jayam Ravi and Vishal were initially considered for the lead role.In July 2008, actress Nayanthara was signed for the female lead role for a record salary of ₹1 crore.As the film's budget was trimmed due to economic recession, discussions were held with Nayanthara to reduce her salary. The talks resulted in failure and Nayantara left the project in December 2008.Lingusamy then filed a complaint with the Tamil Film Producers Council that Nayanthara is refusing to return an advance of ₹15 lakh, which resulted in a temporary ban on the actress.Trisha was then approached, but finally Tamannaah was finalised as the female lead, who was signed for a remuneration of ₹80 lakh.The film was first supposed to feature the main crew members of Bheema, including music director Harris Jayaraj, cinematographer R. D. Rajasekhar and editor Anthony.Linguswamy later announced the film with an entirely new crew; Yuvan Shankar Raja replaced Harris Jayaraj as the film's music composer.Madhi was selected as the cinematographer, after Rajasekhar had opted out of the project as he was busy working on Jaggubhai.Linguswamy chose Priya Manikandan, wife of cinematographer Manikandan, as the chief costume designer, for whom Paiyaa would be her first film project.Lingusamy disclosed later that he had written two scripts, out of which Karthi eventually chose Paiyaa,[20] because he wanted to do an 'urban love story' after two successive roles as a ruffian.Initially titled as Kuthirai, it was later renamed as Paiyaa.Karthi said he was ' ... dying to start shooting for Paiyaa ' and to ' ... wear good clothes ... and he accepted the film because he ' ... desperately wanted to play a cool dude on screen.Due to the slow progress of Karthi's ongoing project, Aayirathil Oruvan, Paiyaa was postponed several times, since Karthi needed to maintain the continuity of his looks for his role in the Selva film.AO producer Ravindran complained to the TFPC that Karthi was trying to change his look and move on to Paiyaa before finishing his commitments, which forced Linguswamy to readjust the shoots of PaiyaaIn late 2009, after finishing the filming of Paiyaa, Lingusamy disclosed his plans of remaking the film in Telugu and Hindi as well.However, as the Telugu version of Karthi's Aayirathil Oruvan, emerged successful in AP, the team just decided to dub and release the film in Telugu to cash in the lead's popularity.The film's distribution rights were acquired by Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies.The film's distribution rights were acquired by Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies.Milind Soman, who had last appeared in Pachaikili Muthucharam, was signed up for the main antagonist's role, a Mumbai-based don.The film's main portions were extensively shot across some major highways, where the story plays, whilst the climax was filmed in Mumbai, where the journey would also end.The song, Suthudhe Suthudhe Boomi, choreographed by Sabeena Khan, was shot at Prasad Studios in Chennai, where a set had been erected by art director Rajeevan, and the waterfalls were added in CG.Adada Mazhada, featuring Karthi and Tamannaah, was shot at the Athirappilly waterfalls in Kerala.All songs were reportedly composed and recorded by Yuvan in Singapore.All lyrics were penned by Na Muthukumar.Paiyaa was initially scheduled for a late 2009 release, but was pushed to 14 January 2010 coinciding with PongalKarthi's second film Aayirathil Oruvan, which was in production for nearly three years, was also planned to release on the same day.According to the TFPC, two films starring the same actor could not be released on the same day, so Aayirathil Oruvan was given priority, whilst Paiyaa was further postponed to April.Paiyaa was later remade in Bengali in 2012 as Jaaneman, starring Soham Chakraborty and Koel Mallick.It was in Kannada in 2014 as Ajith, with Chiranjeevi Sarja playing the male lead.]Here are a few more snapshots from the film...