Development in 2020 In March 2019, sources claimed that after
Bigil (2019), Vijay will be working with
Mohan Raja's next film. However, in May 2019, it was also announced that he will be working with
Lokesh Kanagaraj for his 64th venture, which will be produced by Xavier Britto. Britto who is a relative of Vijay, produced three films for the actor,
Senthoorapandi (1993),
Rasigan (1994) and
Deva (1995), all of which were directed by Vijay's father
S. A. Chandrasekhar. On 22 May 2019, it was reported that Vijay gave a
call sheet for 120 days. An official announcement was made on 24 August 2019, by producer Britto, under his newly launched production banner XB Film Creators. Lalit Kumar of Seven Screen Studio co-produced the film, along with Vijay's manager Jagadish Palaniswamy. Along with the news, he revealed some of the crew that will work on the film, with
Anirudh Ravichander being announced as the music director and
Silva for stunt choreography.
Sathyan Sooryan and
Philomin Raj were retained as the cinematographer and editor respectively for this film, after previously collaborated on the director's
Kaithi. Originally launched under the tentative title
Thalapathy 64, the official title
Master was announced on 31 December 2019 (
New Year's Eve).
Casting In September 2019,
Vijay Sethupathi was announced to be portraying the antagonist. The following October,
Malavika Mohanan was announced as the lead actress. The cast additions included
Shanthanu Bhagyaraj and
Antony Varghese, with the latter making his Tamil debut. Varghese later left the project, citing scheduling conflicts and was later replaced by
Arjun Das, who was a part of Lokesh's previous venture,
Kaithi.
Andrea Jeremiah also signed to be a part of the film in October 2019, followed by
Brigida Saga and
Gouri G. Kishan. The film's cast additions also included,
Nassar,
Sanjeev,
Sriman,
Srinath,
Prem, Actor
Kathir's father made his acting debut with this film. In January 2021, it was reported that
Nani and
Madhavan were approached for playing the antagonist before Sethupathi was finalised. Surekha Vani also filmed scenes, but those were not included in the final cut.
Filming , where integral portions of the film were shot.|left Principal photography began with a
pooja ceremony on 3 October 2019; the film's cast and crew were present at the event. On 4 October,
Rathna Kumar posted on Twitter that he was co-writing the screenplay for this project along with Lokesh. Pon Parthiban, who previously collaborated with Kanagaraj in
Kaithi, was signed to co-write the screenplay with Kanagaraj and Kumar. The film's first schedule took place in Chennai for 15 days. Post the completion of the first schedule, the film's team planned for a 20-day schedule in
Delhi. Vijay and the film's crew members went to Delhi for the second schedule in November 2019. Stills from the film's shooting spot at
Shri Ram College of Commerce in the North Campus, where a song sequence is being filmed, which found its way to the internet, went viral. The film's shoot briefly delayed due to pollution in Delhi. After few pictures from the film's shooting spots were leaked, the team proceeded to have the images removed under the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The crew went to film few important scenes, featuring Vijay and Vijay Sethupathi at
Shimoga district in
Karnataka after the Delhi schedule being completed. However, the makers planned to shoot few scenes in
Chennai, before the schedule. Shanthanu and Sethupathi went to Shimoga in December 2019. Art director Satheesh Kumar, stated in an interview, that more than 15 sets were made on the film's shoot, with one of them being the Metro train sets, which is being used for the first time in Tamil cinema. The makers went to film fight scenes featuring Sethupathi and Vijay at the
Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC). However the film's shoot was interrupted twice, when Vijay was summoned by the
Income tax officials on 5 February, about potential tax evasion, and later on 7 February, when members of
Bharatiya Janata Party, protested in front of the NLC. The film's shooting
wrapped in February 2020, within 129 working days. For their roles in the film, both Vijay and Jeremiah underwent
archery training. A portion of the sequence featuring Lokesh and Rathna Kumar appearing in the end credits of the film, was directed by Vijay, which was the first attempt in direction in his career.
Post-production The film's post-production works which began in March 2020, soon after the completion of the film's shoot was halted due to the
COVID-19 lockdown in India. After the Tamil Nadu government granted permission to resume post-production activities in May 2020, Master became one of the few films to resume works. The team reported that most of the film's works including dubbing were completed before the lockdown, except for the editing works which was resumed on 11 May 2020. Composer
Anirudh Ravichander, took to Twitter stating that he started his works on the film's
background score. The runtime of the film's final cut consists of 181 minutes, before being sent to the officials of the
Central Board of Film Certification on 14 December 2020. The officials granted
U/A certificate to the film due to scenes featuring violence and bloodshed, and with a duration of 178 minutes before censoring. The team revealed it officially on 24 December 2020, with a tweet posted through social media. There were reports claiming that an uncensored version of the film will be made available in its digital release, with few shots which were not included in the theatrical cut. However
LetsOTT, a digital media company website claimed that the film will not contain additional scenes but instead the abusive words will not be censored in this version. A deleted scene of the film with a duration of four minutes was released in February 2021. == Themes and influences ==