"I was just trying to find a way to tell this story," Patel explained. "I wanted it out there. Originally, I hired a friend to write it." Paul Angunawela ("Keith Lemon: The Film") and John Collee ("Hotel Mumbai") are both credited as co-writers on the final product, but initially, Patel says two of them worked on it during an intense year-long process. "I ended up co-writing it and then we, like, hid it in a coffee shop in Koreatown in L.A. for a year driving my manager and everyone crazy because I didn't take any work," Patel confessed, adding that he wanted to "get the vibe of the Korean films in [him] while writing all day."
Patel says it was ultimately filmmaker Neill Blomkamp who convinced him to direct the movie. "We did a film together, 'Chappie,' and I actually wasn't going to [direct 'Monkey Man'], originally," Patel explained at SXSW, referencing the 2015 sci-fi film in which he played a programmer opposite Sharlto Copley's titular robot. Blomkamp, who found box office success with his own debut film "District 9" in 2009, pointed out that no one knew the story of "Monkey Man" better than Patel himself. "Me and Neill started talking," Patel recalled, "and Neill's like, 'You know, man, you should do this. You know every corner of it.'"