Actor-politician Vijay's film Jana Nayagan release postponed indefinitely

Jana Nayagan (which means People's Hero in Tamil) is the final cinematic venture of Indian Actor-politician Vijay. Expectations are sky high, given that Vijay, among India's highest-paid actors, would be bidding adieu to his four-decade-long film career to pursue a political career after Jana Nayagan. Vijay's TVK party is contesting the Tamil Nadu polls that are barely 4 months away.

KVN Productions, the makers of the film, have now announced that the film's release, originally scheduled for Friday, (9th Jan), has been indefinitely postponed.

"It is with a heavy heart that we share this update with our valued stakeholders and audiences. The release of Jana Nayagan, eagerly awaited on January 9, has been postponed due to unavoidable circumstances beyond our control. The new release date will be announced at the earliest," KVN Productions said in a statement.

This big-budget film's original release was planned for January 9th, so that it could hit the screens ahead of the Pongal festival in Tamil Nadu next week.

The delay in the film's release is due to the non-issuance of the Censor Certificate and related hurdles. Earlier this week, the film's producerKVN Productions approached the court alleging that the movie's certification is being unreasonably withheld and delayed. It was mentioned that these delays would cause massive financial loss to the producers who invested ₹500cr($55.6mn).

According to the production firm, they had applied for the Censor Certificate on 18th December, following which they were informed by the Censor Board (CBFC) that the film would get a 16+ age rating, owing to violent content. Further, certain scenes were also asked to be trimmed out.

The producer says that the trimmed version was submitted for certification on December 29th, but the certifying body CBFC had reverted this Monday, Jan 5th, citing further hurdles.

The film certifying body CBFC maintains that Jana Nayagan would have to be reviewed by a larger committee. This is owing to a complaint by a certifying official from their team, regarding some objectionable content in the film. The issue is said to be with scenes depicting the armed forces and content that could hurt religious sentiments. The censor board wants the film to be viewed and certified by a larger committee, a process that could take several days, if not weeks.

After the Madras High Court heard the film's producer and the Censor Board on Wednesday, orders have been reserved for later. Ostensibly, this uncertainty has led to the producers postponing the worldwide release indefinitely.