Box office flop to 1 billion views: How Jaya Janaki Nayaka aka Khoonkhar made history

3 min readHyderabadJul 1, 2026 05:34 PM IST

The 2017 Telugu action drama Jaya Janaki Nayaka has become the first feature-length Indian film to cross 1 billion views on a single YouTube upload, a milestone that arrived nearly nine years after the film left theatres without making a significant impression.

Directed by Boyapati Srinu and starring Bellamkonda Sai Sreenivas and Rakul Preet Singh, the film was made on a budget of approximately Rs 40 crore and earned roughly Rs 20 crore worldwide during its theatrical run. Its second life began when the film was dubbed into Hindi as Khoonkhar and uploaded to YouTube by Pen Movies in 2019, two years after the original release. What followed was not a sudden viral moment but a slow, sustained accumulation of views over six years, fuelled largely by North Indian audiences who discovered the film through YouTube’s recommendation algorithm and kept returning to it for its high-octane action sequences and emotional family drama.

The milestone was celebrated publicly by director Boyapati Srinu, who wrote, “1 Billion Views. 1000 Million Hearts. 100 Crore Emotions. 1 Film. The first movie in the world to achieve this incredible milestone. Thank you for making Jaya Janaki Nayaka (Khoonkhar) a timeless celebration.”

Rakul Preet Singh also shared a note on Instagram, saying, “Some characters stay with you forever, and Janaki will always be one of them,” adding that she was grateful to fans for making Jaya Janaki Nayaka the highest-watched Indian film on YouTube ever. The actress also thanked director Boyapati Srinu and the entire team behind the film for giving her such a memorable journey. She wrote, “A special thank you to Boyapati Srinu sir and the entire team for this unforgettable journey.”

Also Read: Samantha’s Maa Inti Bangaaram emerges as highest earning women-led Telugu film

Era of dubbed films

The milestone is also a data point in a broader, well-documented trend. Many Tamil and Telugu films were broadcast on Hindi satellite channels with dubbed audio and while initially Hindi audiences would watch them as something unique, they soon became a part of their day as the Hindi channels would play them frequently. This trend increased after the rise of YouTube as the audience could now access the films at their ease. Now, films like Pushpa 2 have proven that they have a bigger market in Hindi than in their original language.

However, Jaya Janaki Nayaka’s case is different, and in some ways more striking, since it was a theatrical underperformer that found its largest audience entirely through digital means, without any subsequent theatrical rerelease driving the numbers.

For Bellamkonda Sai Sreenivas, who has built a following in North India over the years through a combination of dubbed releases and digital platforms, Khoonkhar stands apart from everything else in that catalogue. His subsequent releases, including the Hindi remake Chatrapathi, which released in 2023 to poor reviews and weak box office performance, have not come close to matching the digital footprint Khoonkhar has built, suggesting the combination of the film’s content.