3 min readHyderabadApr 22, 2026 02:01 PM IST
The release of Vijay’s Jana Nayagan was supposed to be a celebration before he stepped away from acting and into politics. It was meant to give his fans one last big screen moment, and send him off properly. Instead, the movie has spent months in limbo, caught in a certification battle, dragged through court, and eventually leaked online before a single ticket was sold.
However, SA Chandrasekhar, veteran Tamil filmmaker and Vijay’s father, who has been watching all of this unfold, remarked, “If the film was released without any hurdles, we would have been surprised,” he said.
According to him, at the film’s audio launch in Kuala Lumpur on December 27, 2025, Vijay pulled the producer aside, in front of a packed stadium of over a lakh people, and told the producer directly that he was making this film at a time when his actor was walking into politics. He asked whether the producer was fully aware of the kind of trouble that could follow, and was he okay with it.
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In an interaction with Behindwoods, Chandrashekar recalled, “Don’t say you didn’t expect problems. When Vijay signed the film, he told the producer during the audio launch held in Malaysia, ‘See, you are making a film when I am heading to politics. I hope you are aware of the hurdles the film would face. Are you okay with that?’ He knew it would face hurdles. That is why he said the same. It was well expected. We are not shocked,” he said.
When asked about the piracy, Chandrasekhar framed it in a direct way. “Criminal minds first attack the heart and then go break the financial route,” he said.
The leak drew reactions from across the industry. Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Suriya, Vijay Deverakonda and Chiranjeevi were among those who publicly condemned the piracy and urged audiences not to engage with the illegally circulated content.
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On politics and conspiracy theories
When asked whether opposition parties had a role in any of this, Chandrasekhar did not dismiss the question but he also did not go further than it deserved. He said that such thoughts are speculative and natural, which is a measured way of acknowledging that people will think what they will think, without adding fuel to it.
Jana Nayagan is directed by H. Vinoth and produced by Venkat K. Narayana under KVN Productions. The cast includes Pooja Hegde, Bobby Deol and Mamitha Baiju, with music by Anirudh Ravichander. It is Vijay’s 69th film and his last one as an actor before he shifts his attention entirely to politics.
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