Karan Johar has always been associated and almost synonymised with luxury, opulence and privilege. For some reason, fans often find it difficult to even fathom the fact that he too could have seen a plethora of failures. He is indeed one of the leading director cum producers of India at the moment but it was not always a smooth ride for him. Karan is at the helm of Dharma Productions at the moment and it is one of the leading distribution and production companies in the country; however, the company too did face troubles.
Yash Johar, Karan's father, founded the company and made a grand debut with 'Dostana' in 1980 but then followed a series of failures. Among the string of failures, the one film that affected senior Johar the most was the failure of Amitabh Bachchan starrer 'Agneepath,' which later went on to become a cult classic.
While Dharma was facing major losses, Yash Johar also had an export business, which kept the family afloat during these trying times. In a conversation with Komal Nahta, Karan revealed all about the failures that Dharma had to face in the initial days.
He said, "The business wasn't roaring; it was meowing at best. However, the losses from our films were offset because of it. There were times when we could have been homeless, as several of our movies failed one after another."
Karan called films like Ramesh Talwar's 'Duniya' (1984), Prakash Mehra's 'Muqaddar Ka Faisla' (1987) and Mukul S Anand's 'Agneepath' (1990) as "colossal failures". He kept reiterating that even though these were big films, it was the failure of 'Agneepath' that really affected Yash Johar.
He said, "These were big films with major directors and actors. But when Agneepath flopped, my father was truly heartbroken. He believed it would be the film that elevated him to the level he aspired to."
Dharma eventually bounced back with the release of Karan's directorial debut 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' in 1998. The film starred Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherji and Rani, it is also considered as one of the most iconic films in the history of Bollywood. Not only that, but the film also went on to become an absolute box office hit.
