The title description of Netaji, "The Forgotten Hero", was chosen by director Shyam Benegal because he felt that outside the state of Bengal, nobody knew who Bose really was and/or what he did for India's independence.
The film was released all over India, except for Madhya Pradesh, as the cinema distributors in that region, facing losses from previous historical films, held the film as too controversial and risky to be shown in their halls. Ironically, Bose was re-elected Congress president in 1939 in Tripuri, in the eastern part of Madhya Pradesh.
Hours before the film's premier in Calcutta, five researchers submitted a petition was submitted to the Calcutta High Court seeking to remove any controversial issues seen in the film. These issues were the use of the word "forgotten" in the film's title and the scenes that showed Bose as married to an Austrian woman. In 2002, these same researchers had sent a notice to director Benegal requesting him not to show Bose's death in a 1945 plane crash. The same thing had been done in this case, but this time the researchers threatened to go to court if their requests were not granted. Benegal himself defended his film in court, and the petition was rejected.
The film was originally going to premier on 5 May 2004, in a Calcutta Indian Army ground, in a bid to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. Unfortunately, the petition submitted by the researchers forced this premier to be canceled.
The role was first offered to Paresh Rawal but then the producers changed their minds because Paresh had already played the role of Sardar Patel earlier.