Director Venkat Prabhu is making his Telugu debut with the upcoming bilingual Custody which is all set to release in theaters on May 12, 2023. Starring Naga Chaitanya in the lead, Custody also has Arvind Swami, Sarathkumar, Krithi Shetty, Priyamani, Vennela Kishore (Telugu), Premgi Amaren (Tamil) among others, and is about how a constable assigned to escort a witness from police custody to the courtroom, learns that the entire police department wants the witness dead.

Talking about his U/A censored movie which comes with a runtime of 2 hours and 27 minutes, Venkat Prabhu has said, "I saw a Malayalam film..and it prompted me to write a story just like it. But if I had to make such a film which was completely in the (Mollywood audience) zone, for Tamil and Telugu audience - it had to be more theatrical and not realistic. So I commercialized a lot. I wrote with more entertaining and engaging factors. The Malayalam film's name is Nayattu and I got this inspiration of Custody from that movie." 

Nayattu (2021) is a survival thriller written by Shahi Kabir and directed, co-produced by Martin Prakkat. Starring Kunchako Boban, Joju George and Nimisha Sajayan in the lead, the movie is about how 3 police officers go on the run after being framed for a crime by corrupt officials, and avoid being arrested.