In June 2015, director Pa. Ranjith announced his third directorial venture, which would follow his previous two films Attakathi (2012) and Madras (2014), with Rajinikanth via Twitter. Rajinikanth had been impressed with Ranjith's work in Madras (2014) and subsequently Rajinikanth's daughter, Soundarya, asked Ranjith to work on a script for her father. Working with Ranjith would make Kabali Rajinikanth's first film with a novel director for the first time since his collaboration with S. Shankar in Sivaji (2007). In an interview with IndiaGlitz, producer S. Thanu revealed that Rajinikanth had personally asked him to produce the Ranjith-directed film. The producer's commercially successful Bairavi (1978) was Rajinikanth's first lead role film and the two had not collaborated since. It was speculated that Rajinikanth's role would be based on a real-life mob boss from Chennai. Santhosh Narayanan was confirmed as the film's music composer, continuing his partnership with Ranjith after the latter's previous two films. Ranjith also retained G. Murali, the cinematographer of Madras.

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