The film stars Suriya in triple roles, alongside Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Nithya Menen.

Saranya Ponvannan, Ajay, Girish Karnad, Mohan Raman, Sudha, Sathyan and Charle appear in the supporting roles.

The film follows Sethuraman, a scientist, who invents a time travel watch but Athreya, his twin brother, does everything he can to get hands on that.

However, in February 2010, the project was dropped due to the difference in opinions between the director, producer, and actor, facing rejection of the refined script.

In August 2014, Suriya agreed to produce and act in the film, with principal photography commencing in Mumbai in April 2015, continuing in Nasik, Goregaon and Pune.

[10] Sethuraman is a brilliant scientist and renowned watchmaker who lives with his wife Priya and newborn son Manikandan.

Somewhere else, Athreya, who survived his fall and was in a coma, wakes up after 26 years and is shocked to find out that he is now paralysed from the waist down and significantly older.

He figures out its incredible capabilities including its ability to freeze time for 30 seconds, but questions the origin of the watch, and how it ended up in his possession.

In order to figure out the truth, Mani uses the original to make an identical copy and along with his friend, goes to the provided address.

Now disguised as Sethuraman, Athreya finds Mani and tricks him to upgrade the watch to enable larger time jumps.

Mani manages into successfully upgrade the watch but learns Athreya's true identity and the reason for his parents' deaths.

With this realization, a now prepared Sethuraman manages to successfully use his watch to freeze time, kill Athreya and escape his henchmen.

[16] Due to difference of opinions, the director voluntarily walked out and stated that he had been making changes in the script and would approach a leading actor in future.

[19] In an interview Suriya pointed the core of the plot stating: "The one thing that humans cannot control is "time" but what if one has the power to do so.

[17] The producers had potential discussions with Catherine Tresa[22] for the lead female role before Samantha Ruth Prabhu was finalised in February 2015.

[29] The crew filmed action scenes and songs at Kraków, the Zborow Mountain, Zakopane, Leba, Lewin Klodzki, Jedlina Zdroj, Wałbrzych, Bulowice and Nowe Brzesko–all in Poland.

[37] In his review for The Hindu, critic Baradwaj Rangan called 24 an "intelligent, joyous mix of sci-fi and masala-myth.

"[41] IndiaGlitz.com rated the film 3.3 out of 5 and called it as "A beautiful and brilliant show of Time"[42] For The Indian Express, Goutham VS wrote: "Suriya’s ‘Athreya’ is a role to remember for years to come.

[43] Critic based at India Today, Kirubhakar Purushothaman praised the director, calling him the hero of the film.

[44] In her review for Daily News and Analysis, Latha Srinivasan stated, "Actor Suriya gives a stellar performance in this tale of time travel!

Every emotion is portrayed in his point of view; from love to comedy to pain to revenge, it all comes under his coverage as he plays three important roles in the film.

[47] In her review published by The Deccan Chronicle, Anupama Subramaniam called the film a "well executed and intelligently woven sci-fi thriller.

[48] Subha Shetty Saha, in her review for Mid-Day stated, "24 is a fantastic attempt at sci-fi genre of filmmaking and also belies a lot of hard work and thought that have gone into this at the screenplay stage.

"[50] Gautaman Bhaskaran of the Hindustan Times gave the film 2.5 stars out of 5, claiming: "The Sathya-Mani romance is silly to the core, and drags the narrative down by several notches, though uniformly fine performances by Menen, Samantha and Suriya come as magic relief.

"[51]Sify rated 3 out of 5 stars stating "Straight off the bat Vikram Kumar's Suriya sci-fi film 24 is a well executed thinking movie within the commercial format.

"[52] J Hurtado of Twitch commented on the film, "24 is about as high concept as masala entertainers come, it never forgets its purpose is to thrill its audience and give them what they paid for.

"[54] By the end of its first weekend, the film had earned around ₹50 crore (US$5.8 million) in India,[55] with a considerable part of the revenues coming from the Telugu version.

[59] The title 24 was in a legal tussle when actor Anil Kapoor planned an action against the production house 2D Entertainment as the official look and logo of the film title seemed similar to the American TV series 24, for which Kapoor had bought the remake rights from 20th Century Fox International TV.

His lawyers defended the case, stating that Kapoor holds one of the highest licensee deals for a fiction format.