Brand Dharma: Karan Johar's new karma

By Nandini Raghavendra, ET Bureau

Not much has changed in Dharma Productions office in the six years since Yash Johar died. Yes, the traffic in the lane leading to the office has definitely increased manifold.

And the cabin and chair occupied by Yash Johar has a new occupant, Apoorva Mehta, Karan Johar’s school friend and Dharma Productions CEO.

What has noticeably changed is the wall lit with posters of the films produced under the Dharma banner. From the once-in-two-years films that Karan Johar directed, Dharma’s slate reads two to three films in a year, with foreign studios, Indian corporate film houses, “official” Hollywood remakes, so you have a wall which is pretty much filled up.

“Dharma Productions is what Yash Raj Films was four to five years ago. It is a commendable achievement,” says Anil Thadani of distribution house AA Films.

Today, the distributor fraternity is willing to pay the price Karan asks for his films; in a situation where distributors are cutting down on what they buy, he stands out, he adds.

“What works is that Dharma’s success ratio which is very high and Karan’s keen sense of commerce. He can calculate how much each film can make and knows that a KANK will not be a K3G at the box office. That is Karan’s forte. He has a good balance of creativity and commerce,” says Thadani.

The YRF comparison is something Karan junior frowns at and dismisses, but when the audience at the Berlin Film Festival welcomes the Dharma Productions logo and its music with a resounding applause, he does feel a huge sense of achievement.

A silent dream he had harboured alone, of seeing Brand Dharma resonate across domestic and overseas markets, has been achieved to a large extent. He knows he has done his father proud.

Very like his films. Friend, actor, co-producer, family Shah Rukh Khan says he wished, “Yash Uncle were alive,” for he would certainly have been proud of how his son had grown the production house he had begun.

Among Johar’s last wishes was that Karan nurture Dharma into a family that lived by the ethics and values which would put people ahead of commerce.

“Do not ever tarnish the goodwill of Dharma,” was his advice and it is a mantra his son swears he has lived by. All his seven debutante directors, friends like SRK or Mehta, as well as distributors like Thadani and Siddharth Roy Kapur of UTV vouch for the fact that Karan is a people’s person.

It is his trust in human beings that takes priority, everything else follows. “I never go wrong with people; it happened just once. Delegation and trust are the two things which are critical to building any organisation and I have followed both, after which everything comes easy,” adds Karan, who does not think trust is difficult to place.

So while there is a method to the madness of scaling up from one film in two years to producing 10 films in the past six years, the filmmaker insists that it all begins with people.

Clearing a script and setting budgets follow, after which he delegates the work. There is no looking in or back once a decision has been made. All seven Dharma directors vouch for this in different ways.

From Tarun Mansukhani, who has worked the longest with Karan and made Dostana, Karan’s first production, to Siddharth P Malhotra (actor Premnath’s grandson), who made We Are Family, the first ‘official’ remake of a Hollywood film, Stepmom, and the other five from Ayan Mukherjee (Wake Up Sid) to Punit Malhotra (I Hate Luv Stories) insist that they just did their thing.

“I only come in postproduction, where I make suggestions. There is definitely a creative debate and I would say if I have to put my foot down, I would tell them to trust my experience,” says Karan.

In this journey, Karan the Director has consciously taken a step back, to aid, advise and ensure that Karan the Producer matures. His friend and CEO, Mehta’s exasperated look and constant calculations have ensured the “baby steps in conscious change, like sticking to budgets and timelines.”

And though Karan sidesteps all talk on money, from Mehta to SRK and Thadani to Kapur, all swear by his sharp business mind. As a child, he devoured every trade magazine to see “the report card of every film” and can still rattle off likely UK and US weekend figure collections from a Friday report.

“Karan has his feet firmly planted on the ground and is very aware of market dynamics. It is very rare for a top filmmaker to have such a keen sense of the intricacies of the business. It’s a really lethal combination of creative and commercial instincts at play,” says Kapur.

From spending all his father’s money as he told us frankly five years ago, Karan the producer has deployed close to Rs 350 crore across his last eight to 10 films and another Rs 150 crore tied in for the next three films going on the floors this year itself.

From self-funding, Dharma, with the help of Mehta, moved into institutional finance and brought IDBI on board. “It was a clean way of making films,” says Mehta, and also the best way to increase the slate.

Slowly, a corporate culture evolved with planning, marketing, legal contracts, says Mehta. From working only with Yash Raj, Dharma began working with UTV, a relationship which has matured from three films to co-production as well, foreign studios (Fox Star Studios and now Sony Pictures), all of this while remaining independent.

While Karan has often voiced to this paper that he sees himself attaching to a studio someday, for now, he has given himself two years to “see whether I have the bandwidth to sustain what I have begun.” Distribution and exhibition are definitely out, but it must be a model where he has the creative control.

“From mentoring directors, Karan is moving into a whole new phase of seeking and nurturing talent across screenplay, writing and acting,” says friend SRK, and this is where the next growth and challenge for Dharma lies.

For now, he reads at least five scripts a week. While the industry cries itself hoarse over the dearth of talent, Karan is confident of finding it.

“I promise you, a lot of new talent will come; that is the next phase of our cinema. How long will we play six to eight permutations and combinations of our stars? I hope to play a big part in finding this talent. YRF has been a visionary in this. I think we have no choice, because after all, in films, content is king. Hollywood has killed the star system, 3D, CG, etc rule there,” he says. Sounds like we have a hot new script being written right here.

(The Economic Times)