For the unversed, Karan Johar recently sold 50% stakes in his film company Dharma Productions to Serum Institute of India chief Adar Poonawalla’s Serene Productions for INR1000 crores.
Appearing at the Global Leadership Summit this week, Johar revealed that the goal of this partnership was to take Dharma to the next level, where they could self-fund their projects without external support from other producers, while still prioritizing their smaller-scale ventures.
When asked about his primary motivation behind selling stakes of Dharma Productions, founded by his father Yash Johar in 1979, the ‘Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani’ director shared, “Intellectual property has been a huge part of valuation.”
“The real issue with the funding was that we would always have to partner with an existing studio on the bigger films,” he continued to explain. “So, even when we made big hits, we were always sharing the profits. In this scenario, it gives us the opportunity of increasing and enhancing our profitability and owning the film entirely.”
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“It’s a middle-budget film, where the cost to profit is super high. Those are the films that you can fund entirely on your own, and you can enjoy and reap the benefits of the big breakthrough profits. I believe the real bread and butter, the real money comes from middle-budget film,” Johar opined.
“Yes, there will be those massive Brahmastras that we will make that will need the support of a studio. If I make a film that is over INR 250 crore or 300 crore, it’s not possible to fund that totally at our stage even now,” he explained. “But when you make a film in the INR 65 crore to 80 crore window and you hit a large number, that is the film I’m chasing.”
“More than the tent pole film, I’m chasing the middle-budget film that gives me the larger return. Everybody thinks the bigger the film, the bigger the money made, but that’s not true,” the filmmaker maintained.
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