Businessman film was based on the real-life story of a gangster who had moved from the Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu to Mumbai in the late 1960s.
Ram Gopal Varma signed Suriya for a multilingual action film titled The Businessman in May 2010, to be directed by Puri Jagannadh simultaneously in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi.
The film’s production was expected to begin in October 2010 once Suriya completed his part in 7aum Arivu (2011). But it didn’t finalised.
The film was revived later by R. R. Venkat(R. R. Movie Makers) later in January 2011 with a tagline “Guns do not need agreements”. He signed Mahesh Babu as the protagonist who worked with Puri Jagannadh in the past for Pokiri (2006).
Puri Jagannadh completed the final draft of the film’s script on 25 July 2011 during his stay at Bangkok, adding that he was inspired by Ram Gopal Varma.
Mahesh Babu received the film’s script while dubbing for Dookudu (2011), but due to that commitment, it took 10 days to finish reading the script.
Mahesh Babu said no to smoking scenes, as he gave up smoking in real life.
Shruti Haasan was the first choice for the role, later Kajal was signed as the female lead.
The kiss scene between Mahesh & Kajal was shot only after they got the approval of Mahesh Babu’s wife Namrata Shirodkar.
Businessman completed its shoot in just 74 working days. It marked one of the shortest periods in which a current generation Star heroes Telugu film was shot.
The director reportedly did not narrate the entire script to Mahesh Babu beforehand. Each of the scenes was narrated to him on the set and was shot.
The film’s makers violated the rules of The Cinematograph Act, 1952 and the Central Board of Film Certification regarding the re-working of its title.
Businessman was the first Telugu film to release with subtitles in overseas cinemas.
At that time, released to 92 screens across Hyderabad, breaking the previous record set by Oosaravelli (2011).
S. Thaman was criticised for copying the tunes of the Italian partisan song “Bella ciao” for the song “Pilla Chao” and “He Lives in You”, a song written and performed by Lebo M and his South African Choir for the album Rhythm of the Pride Lands (1995), for the song “Chandamama”.
Bajrang Dal lodged a complaint with Municipal police on 14 January 2012 stating that the lyrics of the song “We love Bad Boys” contained vulgar words and conveyed an unacceptable meaning for which they demanded action against Puri Jagannadh.
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activists entered the Aradhana Theatre at Tarnaka near Osmania University, and stopped a screening on 25 January 2012 at 11:30 AM.
After Mahesh Babu refused to perform in the Hindi remake of this film, Puri Jagannadh approached Ranbir Kapoor in late January 2012 and arranged a special screening for him.
Puri Jagannadh expressed interest in making a sequel of the film after the response to the original on its first day and planned to begin work on the same from late 2012.