"Annaamalai" was released on 27 June 1992. Although its opening was threatened due to a newly established Tamil Nadu government rule where posters of films were prohibited in Madras, the lack of promos only increased the hype and worked to the film's advantage; it ran for 175 days in theatres and was the highest-grossing film in Tamil cinema until 1995 when the record was broken by "Baashha". It was remade in Telugu in 1993 as "Kondapalli Raja" and in Kannada in 2003 as "Gokarna".