The Nivin Pauly starrer Richie hit the silver screens on December 8. When the project went on the floors, it was widely publicized that Richie would be a straight Tamil film for Nivin Pauly and that there would be no Malayalam version.
However, the filmmakers later decided to release the Malayalam dubbed version as well. The lead star enjoys a huge fan base in Kerala following which it was decided to release it in Malayalam to cash in on this fact. On this decision, the co-producer of Richie, said, “We wanted to respect the director's vision and that's why the Malayalam version was held back initially. Since the release of the Malayalam version, we have been getting good reports and there were people who have watched Malayalam and Tamil.”
It may be mentioned here that Nivin Pauly was seen in the 2013 film Neram, which was a bilingual released in Tamil as well as Malayalam. He then went on to act in a segment in Aviyal as well. Directed by Gautham Ramachandran, Richie stars Nivin Pauly in the lead role with the star cast including Natarajan Subramaniam, Shraddha Srinath, Elango Kumaravel, Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli, Prakash Raj, Raj Bharath, Tulasi, Aadukalam Murugadoss, G. K. Reddy, and Bhargav Ramakrishnan.
B. Ajaneesh Loknath had composed the music for this venture with Pandi Kumar handling the camera and Athul Vijay editing it. The film has been bankrolled by Anand Kumar and Vinod Shornur under the banner CAST n' CREW. The film is the remake of the Kannada hit movie Ulidavaru Kandanthe by Rakshit Shetty. Directed by Gautham Ramachandran, the screenplay for it has been penned jointly by Rakshit Shetty and Gautham Ramachandran.