‘Thug Life,’ starring Kamal Haasan and Silambarasan TR, was expected to follow an 8-week window before hitting OTT platforms.The film, which was released in theaters on June 5, 2025, had a deal reportedly in place with Netflix to premiere after two months. However, new reports suggest that this agreement may be cut short, with the film possibly arriving on OTT in just four weeks. The change is said to be due to Thug Life underperforming at the box office and receiving mixed to negative critical reviews.
The 8-week plan may be scrapped
According to a report by M9 News, Netflix is likely to bring ‘Thug Life’ to its platform much earlier than initially scheduled. This aligns with standard OTT practices for films that fail to generate significant buzz in theaters. While Kamal Haasan had earlier referred to the 8-week window as a “pragmatic” move to allow theatrical revenue to build, the strategy might now shift to digital recovery.
Neither the OTT platform nor the film’s makers have issued an official statement yet. With mounting speculation, fans now await official confirmation about Thug Life’s OTT release, which may arrive sooner than they thought.
The plot: power, blood, and betrayal
Directed by Mani Ratnam, Thug Life is a gangster action-drama revolving around Rangaraaya Sakthivel (Kamal Haasan), a powerful aging mafia don who adopts a young boy named Amaran (Simbu) following a violent shootout in Delhi. Legendary combo reunites to deliver a tedious gangster drama.Despite its grand scale and star power, the film failed to connect with a wider audience, and ETimes gave the movie only a rating of 2 stars out of 5. Our official review read, “Thug Life becomes a slog. The latter half goes haywire, with many of the subplots from the earlier portions either being diluted or largely getting shoved away for a long amount of time. Even Amaran goes missing for quite some time. Instead, what we get are preposterous scenes of Sakthivel’s survival after being shot at or stabbed multiple times. The threat of Sadanand ceases to exist, and Deepak feels like a weak antagonist who makes moves that are predictable. Even AR Rahman seems to lose interest and delivers a background score that feels random. The rich production values, especially Ravi K. Chandran’s glossy visuals, the mystery around the fate of Chandra, and the inevitable face-off between Sakthivel and Amaran make us stay invested.”
