Vetri, an erstwhile assistant of Balu Mahendra, prepared a script for Dhanush, who was the lead hero of the films he had worked in. Dhanush, on hearing the one line, immediately accepted the offer.
The film titled Desiya Nedunchalai 47 was initially launched with Yuvan Shankar Raja as the music director and Ekambaram as the cinematographer.
After he found trouble finding producers with Am Rathnam and Salem Chandrasekhar leaving the project after initial interest,
Dhanush's father Kasthuri Raja finally agreed to produce the film and Kirat Bhattal was signed as heroine, while Harris Jayaraj was selected as music director.
However, after two days of shoot the film was shelved and Dhanush opted to pursue other films after the surprise success of his Thiruvilayadal Arambam.
The film's collapse saw Vetrimaaran approach producer Kathiresan and narrated to him the stories he had prepared but the producer did not like Desiya Nedunchaalai 47,
Instead, producer Kathiresan wanted Vetri to first start filming a script that the latter had written based on the bike theft of his close friend, Andrew.
The project was titled Polladhavan on the insistence of producer Kathiresan, who convinced Vetri saying that the Rajinikanth title will get atleast a 20% increase in the opening numbers.
Vetrimaaran's choice for the title of the film were 'Irumbu Kuthirai' and 'TN 4D 3551'. The filmmaker later revealed that he's convinced till date that Polladhavan was not the apt title for the film.
Prithvi Rajkumar, who had written the screenplay and dialogues of the 2001 comedy, Looty, helped Vetri in the script's subsequent rewrites. He was the one who suggested the romantic angle in the film.
Vetrimaaran has said that he had 'ample time' and 'creative freedom' for his production works of Polladhavan as 'Dhanush had full confidence in him'
However, Vetri also revealed that the producers were very particular about adding a comedy track in the film. The original script didn't have the characters played by Santhanam and Karunaas.
Vetri had later revealed that the entire comedy track in Polladhavan was written by Santhanam.
The film's production designer Durai helped Vetri rope in GV Prakash Kumar to score the music
Dhanush recommended cinematographer Velraj to Vetri after the pair had worked together in Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram (2007).
Vetrimaaran chose Kannada-actor Kishore to play the role of Selvam after his assistant gave him rave reviews of the actor's performance in the unfinished Prashanth-starrer Petrol.
Polladhavan thus became Kishore's Tamil debut,
The team held test shoots with both Kajal Aggarwal and Poonam Bajwa for the film and released the stills, but Vetri was still unsatisfied and finished two schedules before zeroing on DIvya Spandana.
Polladhavan was the first film to credit her as Divya Spandana. Before this, she went with the screen name, Ramya, and was called Kuthu Ramya, after her debut Tamil film.
Vetri also revealed that there was initially some disagreement with Divya as she got offended by his words and did not come for the shoot for three days, before production designer Durai intervened.
Vetrimaaran revealed that after he wrote the first draft, he made many changes to suit the visual medium and for Dhanush on his physical attributes while playing an action hero.
Vetri later said in an interview that Dhanush was very hesitant about being bare-bodied in the blood-curdling climax, but he somehow convinced him.
Dhanush apparently worked out regularly for three months to get the chiseled six-pack that he flaunts in the climax.
When questioned about its relevance to Bicycle Thieves, Vetri stated that it 'is a disgrace to Bicycle Thieves if it is compared with Polladhavan'
Responding to allegations that the song Minnalgall Koothadum was a rip-off of Akon's Smack That, GV Prakash stated that he might have been inspired by it, but he didn't just copy that song.
Polladhavan was remade in Kannada as Punda and in Telugu as Kurradu starring Varun Sandesh, but it could not repeat the success of the original version.
Polladhavan was remade in the Sinhalese language as Pravegeya.
Polladhavan was also remade in Bengali, Borbaad (2014), directed by Raj Chakraborty, with debutant Bonny Senguta and Rittika sen.
Here are some stills from the film, and the earlier photo-shoots with Kajal Agarwal and Poonam Bajwa.
