Vijay's film Mersal gave tough competition to Hindi films in October 2017, when it collected more than Golmaal Again and Secret Superstar in international markets. Most of his Tamil films are dubbed into Hindi by Goldmines Telefilms and telecast on Sony Max Hindi TV channel. Vijay's song Varalam Va Bairavaa is played in Ajay Devgan's Hindi film Golmaal Again (2017) during a fight sequence along with a poster of his film Theri as a tribute to the actor. Vijay's first cameo Bollywood appearance in the song Chinta Chinta from the Hindi film Rowdy Rathore (2012), co-starring Akshay Kumar and Prabhu Deva, was well received by Hindi audiences. Sarkar is the highest grossing film of 2018. His next film, the action film Sarkar directed by A R Murugadoss and produced by Sun Pictures released on diwali 2018. Mersal was screened at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea. Mersal was his second film to release in China after Kaavalan (2011). For his role in Mersal, Vijay was nominated at the National Film Awards UK in 2018 and also the film won the Best Foreign Language Film award at the National Film Awards UK.
Mersal was also released in Japan in four major cities Tokyo, Ebina, Osako and Nakaya. Mersal became the highest-grossing film of Vijay's career, and the first of his films to gross over ₹2,500,000,000. His next film, the action-thriller Mersal, directed by Atlee, co-starring Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kajal Aggarwal and Nithya Menen and produced by Sri Thenandal Films was released in late 2017. His next, the masala film Bairavaa, directed by Bharathan, co-starring Keerthy Suresh and produced by Vijaya Productions was released in January 2017.