Karan Johar’s Candid Take on ‘Homebound’ Shows How Bollywood is Changing

Producer-director Karan Johar’s observations in an interview recently rankled a few who thought he was being a tad unfair while talking about his own latest film release, Homebound (2025)Directed by Neeraj Ghaywan and helmed by young actors Ishan Khatter, Janhvi Kapoor, and Vishal Jethwa, the movie opened to glowing reviews across the board but failed to bring in the much-needed footfall when it was released at the fag end of last month.Homebound received immense applause and plaudits at Cannes and in other festival circuits and has also been announced as India’s official entry to the next year’s Oscars. Johar, however, seeing the film’s low fortunes at the box office window across India, lamented that it was imperative that profitability also accompanied the critical acclaim, and if films fail to run and nudge the production house into the green at the end of the day, then he will need to re-think plans of backing movies like Homebound in the future. While in a later statement, Johar stood by Homebound and clarified that his take was a purely business oriented one, it still has left many disappointed. Neeraj Ghaywan's ‘Homebound’ Is a Poetic Portrait of Lives India Refuses to SeeDespite all the unprecedented crises that the Indian film industry is facing from various quarters, many will agree that some of these challenges have indeed turned into opportunities for a lot of artistes and creators. Popular entertainment as we knew it has transformed so much that action, love, comedy, and drama is ready to cloak, drag us into their universe at the swipe of a finger or the press of a button. No surprises then that even the whole dimension of film conceptualisation, planning, and making is being overhauled. Good scripts and content are the supreme king, as our much loved and feted superstars are only as good as their bling. This truth is dawning, quite late frankly, on everyone connected with the movie industry business, especially the all-important producers/production houses who pitch in with their monies of all kinds. Post-pandemic, we have also witnessed traditional film production companies shake themselves up to adapt and align themselves to this new normal. Apart from the usual slate of film scripts for the big screen, many have in their portfolio scripts for web series and shows for streaming platforms, competing with big players like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video who inevitably have much deeper pockets.The latter two, along with a few other entities, are changing the business of entertainment so much that they are also moving in to focus on regional web series content where they see a huge untapped market. However, Dharma Productions (founded by Yash Johar in 1976), one of India’s legacy production houses, had already taken the plunge to create a different arm called Dharmatic Productions in 2018.The idea was to work on scripts that were not purely mainstream and commercial but more in line to produce films for the streaming universe albeit with trimmed budgets as compared to the big-budget extravaganzas of its parent Dharma. However, having seen decent success with ‘Brahmastra – Part One: Shiva’ starring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt in 2022, and some medium-sized hits (Kapoor and Sons (2016), Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahaani (2023)) no projects since then have really gone on to light the box office on fire for Dharma Productions. Further, in what was a surprising move then and is a not-so-surprising now, exactly a year ago, Adar Poonawalla’s newly created media/entertainment entity Serene Productions invested around Rs 1,000 crore in Johar’s Dharma and Dharmatic Productions to own about half of the stake in the film house. This, after closing off competition from Reliance Entertainment and Saregama who also had their own plans to zero in on Dharma. Clearly, business would not be as usual at Dharma Productions once ‘equity’ and ‘profit’ become keywords, affecting how Karan Johar and his creative team conceptualise and plan future projects.However, in the past couple of months, Dharma has given us Dhadak 2, Sunny Sanskari ki Tulsi Kumaari (SSKTK) and Homebound. While Dhadak 2 (Siddhant Chaturvedi and Tripti Dimri) earned positive reviews as well, the acclaim did not exactly turn into the much-anticipated high at the box office. The film ended its worldwide run with a worldwide gross earning of around Rs 30 crore. It was only the Dussehra release, SSTK, with Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor, and Sanya Malhotra that did decent business with the latest figures touching a worldwide gross of over Rs 80 crore and counting. Homebound, however, was a non-starter at the box office window in India, with its overseas release still being worked out. 'A Director Told Me I Was Hopeless at Acting': ‘Homebound’ Actor Vishal JethwaThe harsh truth is, Dharma’s releases, whether arthouse (Homebound), message-driven (Dhadak 2) or absolutely commercial (SSKTK), have really not done well commercially in the recent few months. Therefore, to be fair to Johar’s online critics, solely picking on Homebound in his statements seemed rather unfair of him, what with having got Martin Scorsese on board as executive producer and all the attention the film has received. On the other hand, being the seasoned producer that he is, Karan would have been just saying what needs to be told, given the context of how the ownership stakes and the outcome of releases have played out since the last one year at Dharma.While we pounce on him, it would only be fair to refresh our fragile memories about his brilliant collaborations with a slew of first-time directors and his backing a bunch of trailblazing producers. Think The Lunchbox (2013) and Kill (2023), for starters, that opened up numerous avenues for aspiring producers and filmmakers to tell hatke stories that can reach a wider audience that isn't merely pre-tuned to the global Indian diaspora. Rewind a bit more, and we have Dharma’s evergreen smash hits, Dostana (1980), Agneepath (1990), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), My Name is Khan (2010), and many others that remain landmarks in their own right.As eagle-eyed, number-crunching honchos overtly obsessed with the vital statistics of each film in their productions’ pipeline flit in and out of big production houses, providing a breezy summary note of what story or concept to green-light, it is often story tellers and some brilliant concepts that have to bite the dust.It is, nevertheless, heartening to note that even as this reality unfolds before us, there is also the steady democratisation of cinema and the process of filmmaking, thus enabling niche, small entertainment entities, even passionate individuals, to come in and join the party along with the already established big names in the movie business.While the initial going is definitely tough and trying, many like Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment and Josy Joseph’s Confluence Media, who look at the business of cinema and entertainment formats through a completely different lens, are surely there for the long haul.Karan Johar’s much-loved cup of coffee would have taken on a revolting turn after a couple of sips, tasting more like a well-stewed chicken broth, after what transpired last week. But hey! Give him a break, he is still bringing us the movies and let's thank our almighty, glittering stars for that.(Anand Mathew is based in New Delhi and writes of films, entertainment and contemporary issues. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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Kjo's comment on needing profitability for critically acclaimed films has rankled many fans of films like Homebound.

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Topics: Bollywood Karan Johar