Sivaji Development

After directing Kadhalan in 1994, Shankar announced that he aimed to direct films starring South India's two major actors, Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth.[7] In partly fulfilling this desire, Shankar next directed Indian with Kamal Haasan in the lead role. Following this, Rajinikanth laurelled praises upon Shankar, showing interest upon a future film with the director. However, Shankar next directed the Prashanth-Aishwarya Rai starrer Jeans, which was also successful at box-offices.[8]
Following Jeans, Shankar wrote a screenplay and a story suitable for a film, with Rajinikanth in the lead role. However, Rajinikanth rejected the film offer citing a lack of free call sheets as he was busy acting in K. S. Ravikumar's, Padayappa.[9] Shankar's film titled, Mudhalvan eventually starred Arjun Sarja and the film was another success for Shankar, who also produced the film himself under his personal banner, S Pictures. Rumours arose in late 2000 that Shankar's next film was set again to star Kamal Haasan with Preity Zinta, in a film tenatively titled, Robo.[10] However Shankar denied the rumours and went ahead with his other films, Boys and Anniyan both of which were successful, with the latter becoming a blockbuster. Post-Anniyan, which had Vikram in the lead, Shankar took a three-month break in preparation for his next project. Actors such as Chiranjeevi, Salman Khan and Vijay showed interest in acting under his direction but however he did not rush into signing a film.[11]
In October 2005, Tamil cinema's largest and oldest production house,[12] AVM Productions, run by M. S. Guhan and M. Saravanan approached Shankar in making a film under their production house, Shankar accepted the offer. The film generated considerable interest though the cast was unannounced. Utilising the huge budget, Tamil cinema's highest-paid actor,[13] Superstar Rajinikanth was signed for the project. Rajinikanth had just delivered the biggest hit of Tamil film history, Chandramukhi[14] and had not signed up for his next film when the offer was made. The title considered at this stage of production was Super Star but Rajinikanth claimed that he did not want to boast of his status in the cine field. The film was eventually named Sivaji. Rajinikanth's birthname is Sivaji Rao Gaekwad. Hence, Sivaji was chosen for the name of the movie. A tagline, The Boss was suffixed to the title.[15]