4 min readHyderabadJun 26, 2026 05:09 PM IST
Actor Vishnu Vishal has spoken candidly about the failure of Lal Salaam, revealing that he felt compelled to personally apologise to Netflix after the film underperformed, even though the platform itself tried to talk him out of taking the blame.
“Lal Salaam didn’t work in theatres or on OTT. I apologised to Netflix. They asked, ‘Why are you worrying?’ I said, ‘I should take ownership. I’ll come back.’” He recalled their reply, “‘It’s not your film. They tried to do business with Superstar Rajinikanth, and Rajinikanth is in the film for one hour.’ I said, ‘It’s still my film. How can it go wrong?’ OTT platforms like this kind of ownership,” Vishnu Vishal said in an interview with Rednool.
To put the conversation in context, Lal Salaam released in theatres on February 9, 2024, directed by Aishwarya Rajinikanth and produced by Subaskaran Allirajah’s Lyca Productions, with music by A.R. Rahman. The sports drama had Vishnu Vishal and Vikranth playing the leads and Rajinikanth appearing in an extended cameo as a local strongman. Made on a reported budget of ₹80 to 90 crore, the film ended up collecting just ₹17.74 crore in India and around ₹31.25 crore worldwide, a sharp shortfall that made it one of the more visible box office disappointments of Rajinikanth’s recent filmography, and one that reportedly added to financial strain already facing Lyca Productions at the time.
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However, the film’s OTT journey turned out to be just as troubled as its theatrical run. Netflix had acquired the post-theatrical streaming rights before release, but the film’s digital premiere kept getting pushed back, with Aishwarya Rajinikanth later revealing that a hard disk containing key footage had gone missing, delaying plans for an extended director’s cut. The film never actually ended up streaming on Netflix. After more than a year of delays, it eventually made its digital debut on Sun NXT in June 2025, around the Eid al-Adha holiday, in the extended version Aishwarya had described, with Rahman re-scoring portions of it without taking any additional fee.
It was against this entire stretched out, underwhelming journey, spanning a weak theatrical run, a stalled Netflix deal and an eventual quiet OTT release elsewhere, that Vishnu Vishal says he felt the need to personally apologise to the platform, even though Netflix’s own response suggested it didn’t see the film’s failure as something resting on him individually.
About Gatta Kusthi 2
Gatta Kusthi is an upcoming Vishnu Vishal’s film, followed a man who marries a woman he believes is docile and soft spoken, only to discover she is a trained wrestler, and built much of its humour around that reveal. The sequel flips the joke around, with Vishnu Vishal himself describing it as a story about a different kind of politics between a man and a woman this time.
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The film brings back Vishnu Vishal and Aishwarya Lekshmi as the lead pair Veera and Keerthi, along with returning cast members Karunas, Kali Venkat, Munishkanth and Gajaraj, joined by new additions Ramya Krishnan, Yogi Babu and Karunakaran. Directed by Chella Ayyavu, with cinematography by K M Bhaskaran and music by Sean Roldan, the film is set for a worldwide theatrical release on July 3.
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