Shankar had earlier remade Aamir Khan's 3 Idiots in Tamil as Nanban. Interestingly, 3 Idiots was directed by the PK director and the Tamil version had Ilayathalapathy Vijay playing the role played by Aamir Khan in the original.
Shankar had recently praised the Aamir Khan starrer by calling it an enlightening, thought provoking and meaningfully funny film. Praising PK's director and actor, celebrated filmmaker Shankar said the movie was well written and directed by Rajkumar Hirani and it also had Aamir Khan's world class performance.