‘Failure of Alia Bhatt's Jigra did not shock us,' says Karan Johar as recalls being ‘disappointed' by the film's fate at the box office

Indian Express

18 hours ago

Despite opening to widely favourable reviews and eventually making it onto several distinguished 'best Indian/Bollywood movies of 2024' lists, director Vasan Bala's action thriller Jigra, featuring Alia Bhatt and Vedang Raina in the lead roles, ended up being a massive box-office bomb. Mounted on a reported budget of Rs 80 crore, the movie ended up making only Rs 56 crore, according to industry tracker Sacnilk, delivering a heavy blow to the makers. Although disappointed by the outcome, producer Karan Johar, recently revealed that he does not regret making the movie. He went one step further and maintained that he was, in fact, 'proud of the film'.
Describing Vasan's 'syntax' as individualistic and brilliant, Karan stated that he is one of the finest minds working in Bollywood now. 'Jigra had a certain syntax that was not quintessentially mainstream. We had realised that when we watched the movie. But we all believed in it together. None of us were not on the same page. We knew what we were going for. Yes, we were hoping against hope that it would find a wider audience… but we all understand it,' he shared during a chat with Suchin Mehrotra on his YouTube channel.
Karan further expressed hope that the filmmaker would continue on the same path, creating films he truly believed in. 'Vasan's meta-referencing, quirks and style of absolutely breaking the grammar of filmmaking, such things may not always land, right? But should he stop making films like this because of that? No! He must always make films that he believes in,' he stated. Mentioning that he would love to collaborate with Vasan Bala again, Karan said he would gladly agree to produce another project helmed by the filmmaker, no questions asked, regardless of Jigra's outcome. He added, 'I really believe in him.'
Karan continued, 'Yes, we were disappointed, dejected and sad. But we are all very proud of that film, even today. Even now, we have a group comprising Vasan, me and Alia. Vasan has a brilliant self-deprecating sense of humour. He will make fun of himself in the most unique way possible. We still send messages on that group. I do believe that a decade or two later, we will reference Jigra as something that broke ground, something that Alia, Vasan and the rest of us were so brave to do.
'I'm very proud of Jigra. There are films that I'm not proud of. This film may have failed at the box office, but to me and our studio, it's a success story. Yes, every film is flawed; we can discuss and analyse those flaws. But did it shock us when the film failed? No, we understood it, and we did discuss it. We were pragmatic enough to know that we could be in a hit-miss zone; that we may hit the bullseye or we might miss it. We were self-aware. So, its outcome did not come to us as a devastating shock to any of us,' he added.