‘If a bank lost Rs 500 Crore, the country would erupt’: FEFSI chief on Vijay film Jana Nayagan Leak

Theater owners left stranded

For Selvamani, the leak has a direct and painful human cost for everyone in the exhibition chain who had been counting on Jana Nayagan.

“Theater owners have been waiting for four months, hoping this movie would save them. At a time when the cinema industry is struggling, we expected this film to bring in great revenue, but then this happens,” he said.

Jana Nayagan was originally slated for a Pongal release in January 2026 and was widely seen as one of the films most capable of pulling audiences back to cinemas in large numbers. With exhibition businesses across Tamil Nadu having endured a prolonged lean period, this release carried real economic hope for hundreds of theater owners and their staff. That hope has now been seriously damaged.

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Selvamani said, “This release should have been a festival for theaters. The money would have flowed from theaters to distributors, then to producers, and finally to the workers. That chain is now broken. This was the most awaited film of the year. Seeing it leak like this is a shock and a massive loss.” He also pointed out the absence of any effective enforcement mechanism in India to deal with film piracy at scale, drawing a direct contrast with how similar situations are handled in Hollywood. “Our industry has zero protection. If a Hollywood movie leaks like this, people get arrested immediately. But when it happens to an Indian film, no one even asks a question.”

Selvamani also revealed that FEFSI had done its own preliminary inquiry into the origins of the so-called “edit print” that circulated online. “We checked with the editor about the edit print leak. They said copies were sent to Karnataka for dubbing and Hyderabad for audio mixing. We don’t know if it leaked from there.It is terrifying that stolen property is being delivered straight to people’s homes without any fear or reaction,” he said.

The digital shift and its vulnerabilities

Selvamani drew a clear line between the old era of physical film distribution and the current digital landscape, explaining why leaks are now structurally easier to execute.

“Back when we used physical film rolls, the copy was under one person’s control. It was impossible to leak it before the release,” he said, adding, “But now everything is digital. Especially for a Pan-India film, work happens in many places at once, and everything is sent over the internet. For digital thieves, grabbing these files is easy.”

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He directly linked his concern to what Kamal Haasan had said publicly following the leak. Haasan had written on social media that the leak was not an accident but the result of systemic failure, arguing that inordinate delays in certification had created fertile ground for piracy. Selvamani endorsed that reading. “This is exactly what Kamal Haasan sir meant in his tweet. This system is flawed,” he said.

Selvamani closed with a formal appeal to those in power, making clear that he expects both the Central and State governments to act, and not merely react.

“I request the Central and State governments: at least give us the confidence that these thieves will be punished,” he said, adding, “This is spreading through the internet, which is under the Central Government’s control. They must find a way to stop this.”

As of now, Jana Nayagan remains without a theatrical release date. KVN Productions has confirmed that investigations are underway and that civil and criminal proceedings will be initiated against every individual found to be part of the distribution chain of the leaked content.