[4] The film was premiered on 3 March 2019 in front of an audience of 3000 at an open-air theatre at Palace Grounds in Bangalore,[5][6] and was also specially screened at the United Nations headquarters in the year 2021.
The film was shot using cutting-edge technology and cameras with 4K broadcast quality, and was the first to show wildlife in India from an aerial perspective.
[14] The team behind the film include Kalyan Varma, Prashanth S Nayaka, Praveen, Sugandhi Gadadhar, Raghunath Belur, Dilan Mandanna, Adarsh Raju, Pradeep Hegde, Pooja Rathod,[14] Dheeraj Aithal and Ashwini Kumar Bhat and was headed by award-winning wildlife photographers and film-makers Amoghavarsha J S and Kalyan Varma with the unwavering support of Chief Conservator of Forests at Karnataka's Forest Department, Mr. Vijay Mohan Raj and acclaimed naturalist Sarath Champati.
[9] Along with the English original, the film was dubbed and released in four Indian languages (Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada) on Discovery+ with Rajkummar Rao,[27] Prakash Raj[28] and Rishab Shetty[29] providing voiceovers for their respective versions.
[30] Nitin D. Rai, chief editor of the British magazine The Wire called it as "a visually stunning technical masterpiece that ignores the humans that made the wilderness what it is".
[31] Nandini Ramanath of Scroll.in had stated "Wild Karnataka has nothing to say about the potential threats to any of the species it features, nor is the phrase “climate change” ever mentioned.
The visuals speak for themselves: here is a corner of India that needs sustained funding and support so that all its creatures, great and small, may live, love and feast for eternity".
So we can hope this is just the beginning",[33] the latter, in her review for Firstpost, had summarised "Wild Karnataka is also a reminder of why, despite a proliferation of online streaming platforms and an increasing use of cellphones as film-viewing media, theatres will never die: because some films are born to be watched on a mega screen in a darkened hall filled with strangers as awe-struck as you are.
[36][37] The legal stay in this regard has been extended till 3 September 2021, on an order passed by the Karnataka High Court on 12 August 2021.