Lights, Camera, Scoop | Vijay's ‘Jana Nayagan’ Release Stalled by Court Again; Box-Office Update on Prabhas' ‘The Raja Saab’

Will it release or not? That question has come to define the troubled journey of Vijay’s Jana Nayagan, a film that has lurched from one roadblock to another, with no release date in sight, yet. The uncertainty played out over a crucial weekend at the box-office, one that Prabhas’ The Raja Saab tried to capitalise on, expanding its screen count, particularly overseas, as the only major Friday release on offer.

It was a rollercoaster Friday for the team of Jana Nayagan, which had to push the film's scheduled January 9 release owing to the Central Board of Film Certification’s failure to issue a censor certificate. Earlier in the day, the Madras High Court allowed a writ petition filed by KVN Productions LLP and directed the CBFC to grant the film a U/A 16+ certificate. But, hours later, there was a twist, as the first Division Bench of the court, which had heard an appeal, stayed the order within a few hours of its pronouncement.

According to a report in The Hindu, the first Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan granted the interim stay after accepting Additional Solicitor General ARL Sundaresan’s request for an urgent hearing of the appeal. The Bench felt the single judge "ought to have granted time for the CBFC to file its counter affidavit" before passing orders on the writ petition filed by the production house.

According to the report, CBFC withheld issuing the film a certificate after one of the five members of the examining committee complained to the board regarding the portrayal of scenes related to the armed forces in the movie. Several industry voices have opposed the CBFC decision, with filmmaker Pa. Ranjith tweeting that the board's handling of the situation has been "extremely poor."

Jana Nayagan producer, Venkat K Narayana of KVN Productions, issued a video statement, recalling the series of events from December 18, when they applied for a censor certificate. "We made every possible attempt to get this film out, but these developments were beyond our control," the producer said in the video.

"We believe Vijay sir deserves the farewell that he has earned through decades of love from his fans and the industry. We have complete faith in the judiciary and are hopeful that the film will reach the audiences at the earliest," he added.

Directed by H. Vinoth, Jana Nayagan (titled Jana Neta in Hindi) was one of the most anticipated films of the year, especially considering it marks Vijay's final screen appearance before he enters politics full-time.

The Raja Saab Box-Office

The box-office juggernaut Prabhas is back with his latest feature, The Raja Saab. Written and directed by Maruthi, the film had a wide-scale global release on Friday, but the horror comedy opened to generally poor reviews.

Prabhas, who enjoys a huge north Indian fan following, seems to have registered one of his lowest opening post-Baahubali in the Hindi belt, with The Raja Saab going the Radhe Shyam way, registering collections in single digits as per early trade trends, which peg the Hindi collections to be around ₹5 to 6 crore.

What has come as a saviour, expectedly, is the film's big opening with the Telugu version. According to Sacnilk, the film has grossed a little over ₹100 crore worldwide on day one, becoming the sixth Prabhas film to do so. However, the margin has drastically reduced.

The star's last outing, Kalki 2898 AD in 2024, had recorded a global opening day gross of over ₹177 crore. Even his box-office failure, Adipurush, had clocked a worldwide opening of ₹127 crore, according to the industry tracker. Thus, The Raja Saab has emerged as the lowest day one for Prabhas in the last 10 years, except for Radhe Shyam.

With no major release in sight but poor word of mouth, The Raja Saab might pack in some punch over the weekend before it starts to gradually slow down.