Karan Johar on Kalank’s failure: ‘It is largely my responsibility and my blame’
Karan Johar has opened up about Kalank’s box office failure, saying that he chooses to take the blame for the film’s performance.
Kalank was perhaps one of the most awaited films of the year – beautifully shot on an epic scale, it had an all-star cast that would be envy of many. Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditya Roy Kapur, Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt came together for the Abhishek Varman film that received mixed reviews but couldn’t get audience’s approbation.
While the film’s actors had spoken about its dismal box office performance, its creative producer Karan Johar has now taken the responsibility. Speaking to DNA, Karan said, “To me, when Kalank fails, it is my failure. I’m the older one, I’m the wiser one. I’m the more knowledgeable person about what works and what doesn’t. If the film has faltered, it is largely my responsibility and my blame. Of course, no one person can take the blame, but I choose to because I felt that the material was something I was aware of for not one year but 15 years.”
Calling it a film close to his heart – Kalank was a project first envisaged by his late father Yash Johar – he said he chose to look at it as a learning experience. “There are two ways I could have gone about this. I could have sunk in this failure or I could have questioned, ‘Why?’ Or I could have said, ‘Why did this happen and let me learn from this.’ Let this be a new 2.0 feeling where I am a lot more analytical. I am putting my projects through a lot more trials and tribulations before it is out there to an audience. When you fail and learn from it, that to me is a success. I will never look at Kalank as a failure. I will look at it as a success because it has taught me how not to fail like this.”
The film that recorded an opening weekend of Rs 62.50 crore managed Rs 74 crore by the end of the first week and is looking at lifetime business of Rs 80 crore, said trade website Box Office India.
Karan also said that he was touched by Varun’s reaction to the failure, “Varun came to me and said, ‘Karan, let’s make this up to the audience and to the studio which backed us. Let us, the same team get together and make it up to them by giving them a winner. Let us not get cowed down by this failure. Instead let us move on to something more positive.’ I have humongous respect for Varun.”
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