Like Abhijan, Ray was forced by circumstances to direct this film. Some of his assistants were supposed to do the film, but they suddenly lost confidence and asked him to take it on. He had no input in the choice of the story and casting.

In an interview with Cineaste magazine, Ray described Chiriyakhana (The Zoo) as his most unsatisfying film. He said, "Chiriyakhana's a whodunit, and whodunits just don't make good films. I prefer the thriller form where you more or less know the villain from the beginning. The whodunit always has this ritual concluding scene where the detective goes into a rigmarole of how everything happened, and how he found the clues which led him to the criminal. It's a form that doesn't interest me very much".