45 on OTT: Exploring why Arjun Janya’s debut directorial didn’t strike a chord with audiences
45 on OTT: Termed a ‘spiritual hit’ by the film team, 45 had a dismal box office run, doing little to no business with its dubbed versions in other languages. The film will be on OTT shortly
Last Updated: 03.24 PM, Jan 15, 2026
Composer Arjun Janya came up with a story for a film that he wanted to pitch to another filmmaker, but then Shivarajkumar, who plays one of the leads, convinced him to do the job himself. He then convinced Upendra and Raj B Shetty too to be a part of the film, but with such power comes responsibility – to make the most of the opportunity of handling 3 stars efficiently. There were callbacks to earlier works of each of the three actors, which, as standalone elements are just the elevations that audiences look for. As part of a larger narrative, though, they served no purpose.
That and a lot more went wrong for Arjun’s debut directorial, which, according to trackers has grossed around Rs 16 cr only, against a rumoured budget closer to Rs 50 cr. Luckily for the team, the post-theatrical rights had been sold before the landslide of criticism happened, so the film is headed to OTT shortly. It will drop on Zee5 on January 23 and will be available via OTTPlay Premium as well.
Here’s a look at why 45 fumbled at the box office
Team 45 gets court order against negative reviews
A growing trend in the Kannada film industry is to silence voices of dissent. Of late, several film teams have been seeking legal recourse to stop negative reviews, especially on ticket aggregator sites like BookMyShow. The platform allows only people with valid tickets for a particular movie to post comments and ratings and while film teams would earlier actively get low ratings removed, now, they’ve gone a step ahead to block all reviews. The team of 45 also disabled rating on the platform, which irked audiences who’d bought tickets and wanted to voice their opinions.
This move sparked a wave of discontentment, with audiences reckoning that instead of such ‘gimmicks’ the team should have focused on making a better film.
Good concept, bad execution for 45
Arjun’s idea of exploring what becomes of the human soul after a person’s death was, no doubt, unique and had great potential. It’s in the execution that he failed. Arjun chose to tell the story through Raj B Shetty’s character Vinay, who, following a nightmare in which he first runs over a dog with his bike, while talking on the phone, and then gets run over by a truck, has a sudden unexplained interest in the afterlife.
Thereafter, pretty much everything that occurs to Vinay seems like it is straight out of the Garuda Purana, which was the answer he’d found online and repeatedly returns to (out of curiosity). This, by itself, was not all that bad, but then Arjun knew he’d need a solid landing and what better than to take the ‘divine’ route, a la Rishab Shetty’s Kantara franchise. If the many avatars of Guliga solve all problems in Kantara, for Vinay, it is Shiva’s different forms that come to the rescue.
The best guess is that Arjun thought that this would have audiences talk about the impact of the last 20 odd minutes and overlook all other shortcomings, much like it happened with Kantara. But then 45’s climax was heavily dependent on VFX, which was not the world-class quality the team was hoping to achieve when they outsourced it to Canada-based Marz. Shivarajkumar assembling his army of Shiva avatars, including the much-talked about ardhanareeshwara, did not have the excitement of, say, ‘Avengers Assemble’. Moreover, a shot of Lord Shiva that resembled Puneeth Rajkumar was called out as disservice to the late actor.
Arjun, whose music has been the backbone of several Kannada films over the years, did, what he thought was the best course for 45, but it remained underwhelming at best, with no recall value. The inclusion of actors like Jaffer Saddik and Rajendran in the supporting cast served no purpose whatsoever, with the latter’s screen time not exceeding a couple of minutes. Strangely enough, even though the film is a little less than two and a half hours in runtime, the pacing is a major issue – the narrative drags and the repetition of scenes doesn’t help the cause. Add to this dialogues that are downright preachy in nature and there’s little to bring joy to audiences
45 the movie FAQs
Q. Where to watch 45 the movie?
A. Kannada music composer Arjun Janya's directorial debut released in theatres on December 25, 2025 and is still running in a limited number of movie halls. It is, however, OTT bound, with Zee5 set to bring it to audiences on January 23, 2026. It will be available via OTTplay Premium also.
Q. What is the inspiration behind Arjun Janya's directorial debut, 45?
A. Arjun Janya lost his brother during the Covid-19 pandemic, which is the inspiration behind the story of 45. According to reports, the film revolves around the 45 days after a person's death, which, as per Sanatana Dharma, is when it is decided if the soul moves to the after life or gets reborn.