Actor R Madhavan says the initial idea behind his upcoming release "Nishabdham" was to present it as a silent feature that would have ensured that it caters to audiences without any language barrier. The actor, known for his over two-decade-long work in both Bollywood and South cinema, features opposite Anushka Shetty in the Hemant Madhukar-directed movie. Madhavan said the idea had to be dropped as the team felt that the thriller elements of the story were being compromised.

"This movie was initially supposed to be a silent film. No dialogues. That was how it was conceived initially. So I thought that since it is a silent film, it will appeal to all audiences. It didn't have to be defined as a multilingual feature. "But later on, we realised that we were not able to do justice with the story because there were some places where we needed dialogues to make the story clearer. That's when we decided to make it in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam," the 50-year-old actor told PTI in an interview.