The famous 3D fighting scene in the car junkyard originally involved Anil Kapoor being dripped in water. He was also gym training for 7 months for this scene. At the time of the shoot, he refused to shave his body hair, and finally it was planned to smear him in mud. It was the first action scene in Indian Cinema to employ the use of computer effects and 36 different cameras were used simultaneously for a single scene. When Anil Kapoor stated that he was not really comfortable with facing the camera with his shirt off, Shankar replied that the scene was very crucial for the story and he can change the hero but not the scene.
Shah Rukh Khan was offered the lead role but declined.
The makers built a huge set of the TV studio of the fictional news channel QTV. More than 700 TVs and cameras and a very large TV screen were set up to make the set appear real. In the climax when the set is destroyed, each TV and camera was smashed to smithereens.
Anil Kapoor's character was named after superstar Rajnikanth's original name, Shivajirao Gaekwad. It was because the original Tamil version "Mudhalvan" (1999) was written with him in mind. But he declined the film, hence the retention of the character name in Hindi version which had Maharashtra in the background.