‘Dharma rarely loses money on films; Karan Johar stayed zen after Jigra’s failure,’ reveals creative head, admits Janhvi Kapoor did Homebound for free

‘Everybody took a pay cut for Homebound, Janhvi worked for free’

While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Somen shared that the makers kept both Dhadak 2 and Homebound as tightly budgeted films, knowing they wouldn’t fetch big bucks, but still managed to stay ‘safe’ in terms of return on investment (ROI). He also revealed that everybody took a pay cut for Homebound and that Janhvi Kapoor even worked for free.

He said, “But I’d like to state that Dhadak 2 and Homebound are two of the most tightly budgeted films ever made in Dharma. So, number-wise, we are safe. On Homebound, everyone took a pay cut, from the writers to the HoDs, and Janhvi Kapoor worked for free. I told all the writers that for the next one, I will give them that number and everyone understood that. That’s why we could make it cheaper. So, box-office was never a concern for these two films.”

‘Dharma rarely makes losses on a film’

He added, “Of course, when you’re doing a commercial film, the box-office focus will be a lot more. But at Dharma I have learnt that we rarely make losses on a film.”

When asked about the reason behind Dharma’s ability to make money despite not-so-great box office numbers, he explained, “It is the revenue that we get. Because most of the time we have chartbuster music, so we get good value on that, add to it the digital and satellite prices, and we rarely lose money on a film. Again, it’s a wrong perception from the outside. Suppose there’s a budget of 100 crores, we do the math to check if we can get Rs 80 crores from non-theatrical, in which case our risk appetite is only 20 per cent on that one. So, most of the time, we recover.”

Sharing why Dhadak 2’s mainstream nature required the film to perform decently at the box office, he added, “Dhadak 2 was still in a slightly more mainstream space because we are doing the romance and the songs. So we knew that if it had a decent number, we were home.”

Somen admitted that the makers’ intention with Homebound was never to win the box office race, but to make the film a success at film festivals. “With Homebound, box-office was never the intention because the treatment was not of the traditional mainstream space. Our issue was to see how we can get it to Cannes or Toronto. If the film hadn’t done the global festival rounds, that would have been a problem. If you are not working for box office but are also not landing film festivals, then it’s alarming.” For the unversed, Homebound is the official entry for India for the 2026 Oscars, in the Best International Feature Film category.

On Jigra’s failure

Talking about Karan Johar’s reaction to Jigra’s failure, Somen shared, “Karan is always in a zen mode during hits or flops. The idea is to get your learning, but move on to the next. If Jigra had landed, a lot of things would have changed, but that’s OK.”

Dhadak 2, Homebound  and Jigra’s budget and earnings

Dhadak 2’s reported budget has been between Rs 50–60 crore. The film, which starred Triptii Dimri and Siddhant Chaturvedi in lead roles, minted Rs 31.5 crore worldwide, according to Sacnilk. Homebound was reportedly made on a modest budget of Rs 25 crore, and the website states that the film collected Rs 2.65 crore worldwide. Jigra, on the other hand, made Rs 55 crore on a budget of Rs 80 crore.

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