in august 2015, bobby simha signed on to appear in a venture titled "veera" directed by debutant rajaraman and produced by elred kumar of rs infotainment. the production house signed him on for three films, with "ko 2" (2016) and "kavalai vendam" (2016) also announced to be in production during the same period. the film was titled after producer panchu arunachalam allowed them to use the title that he had previously owned after making the 1994 film of the same name. rookie actress iswarya menon was signed on to play the leading female role, while bala saravanan was selected to play a major supporting role. subsequently, in november 2015, bobby simha opted out of the film citing scheduling issues and was replaced by vishnu in the lead role. during the same month, karunakaran was also selected to replace bala saravanan, while leon james was signed as the music composer after the producers were impressed with his work in "ko 2".