The 'Kaa.Karuppanukkum' song, with Kamal Hassan and Mallika Sherawat, was to be shot in the USA, but Sherawat had issues with her visa which meant she could not enter the States, so the song's destination was shifted to another destination: Malaysia. Kamal Hassan was keen to break the record for an actor appearing in the most roles, so he came up with an original storyline incorporating Indian religion and mythology. Kamal Hassan make-up as the United States President took six hours to apply.

Six machines, which generated 20-foot-high waves, were imported from the US, for a total cost of Rs. The film's tsunami VFX were shot at a 50,000 square foot area of land in which a 100-ft. Then legal wrangles forced the film to be postponed a further four months. Unfortunately, the release was delayed further and the film was tentatively scheduled to release on February 15, 2008. The film was originally meant to release on August 12 2006, but was delayed by six months to release on Apan auspicious date, being the Tamil New Year's Day. This is Asin's first film in a double role. This is Mallika Sherawat's first Tamil film. They were respectively replaced with Himesh Reshammiya and Mallika Sherawat. However, the AVM Company passed a rule that nobody making Rajnikanth's Sivaji should be involved in making this film, which forced the two of them out. Rahman and actress Shriya Saran were part of this film's cast and crew. The first three minutes of the film cost the producer three crore (30 million) rupees. Kamal Hassan plays ten characters in this film. The term 'Dasavatharam' is used in Hindu mythology to depict the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu. In the end, Asin and Mallika Sherawat were selected as the film's heroines.

Vidya Balan, Jyothika, Mumtaj, Kiran Rathod, Meena, Bhoomika Chawla, Sameera Reddy, Nadia Moidu, Kamalinee Mukherjee, Nithya Das, Meera Jasmine, Simran, Vasundhara Das, Trisha Krishnan, Nayanthara and Shriya Saran were all offered such roles in the film, but ultimately turned them down due to date clashes with other films. Originally, Kamal Hassan was to act with ten actresses alongside each of his ten characters. However, this new record was beaten two years later by 'Enthiran'. It was also the first Tamil film to beat the record set by 'Sivaji' a year earlier.

About 20 million tickets were sold worldwide. The film completed a 175-day run at the box office.

Tsunami in dasavatharam