Merry Christmas, which marks Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi's first collaboration, released in theatres on Friday. The actor, in an interview with Brut India, revealed how people initially reacted to him being cast opposite Katrina Kaif in the film. "I was shocked because everybody had that question. When I first told them that I am doing a Sriram Raghavan sir's film, they said, okay, very good, superb. And (then I said) I am doing it with Katrina Kaif, so they said, Is yours a guest role? Is it a heroine centric film? Everybody knows Katrina. It was a shock for me also. Like how is it going to be in the film, everybody's asking, how is this pair on screen? The same way I also had that fear and the doubt."
The film opened to stellar reviews from film critics. In his review for NDTV, film critic Saibal Chatterjee gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5 and he wrote, "Katrina Kaif, in one of most convincing screen performances of her career, conveys, in a strikingly minimalistic manner, confusion and vulnerability cloaked in occasional flashes of steely determination. She is helped a great deal by the contrast that Vijay Sethupathi represents as an actor who relies more on his eyes and facial expressions than on mere words to capture the storm that is raging in his heart and mind and around him."
Merry Christmas released in theaters in Tamil and Hindi on January 12. It was shot in two languages with different supporting actors. The Hindi rendition features Sanjay Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Pratima Kannan, and Tinnu Anand in supporting roles, while the Tamil version stars Radhika Sarathkumar, Shanmugaraja, Kevin Jay Babu, and Rajesh Williams.