 The film was screened in Cannes , France , Pan Asia Film Festival in London , Dingle Film Festival and the Tokyo International Film Festival . The distributors advised director Kumar to remove a scene which they considered to be too dramatic for the western audiences . A private screening for a youth assembly was held at the United Nations . Revolver Entertainment acquired the distributor rights of the film for North American region in September 2014 . The worldwide sales rights were acquired by GFM Films . The film 's United States release was scheduled for 7 November 2014 . A special screening of the film was held in New York on 18 September . Another special screening was conducted in Bhopal just prior to the release . It was attended by many well known actors of the Hindi film industry . The film opened in New York on 7 November , Los Angeles on 14 November and in India on 5 December 2014 . Reportedly , Kumar had insured the film against libel for an undisclosed amount . Bhopal @-@ based journalist Rajkumar Keswani wanted to sue the film producers for portraying him as a " salacious gossip columnist " before his lawyer advised him to watch the film first . He had seen the film 's original script in which Penn 's character was named Keswani . Inspired by the film , musician Sting collaborated with Anoushka Shankar to record a song . Kumar also confirmed their collaboration . 
