Janhvi Kapoor did Homebound for free, crew took pay cut: Dharma Productions creative head says they 'rarely make losses'
Somen Mishra, the creative head of Dharma Productions, says even films like Dhadak 2 and Homebound, did not result in loss for them.
Dharma Productions’ last few films have not really set the cash registers ringing. Both Dhadak 2 and Homebound fared badly at the box office despite being low-budget films and getting rave reviews. However, the production house’s creative head, Somen Mishra, has said that the films did not give Dharma any losses.
Dharma creative head on Dhadak 2 and Homebound
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Somen Mishra, who produced both Dhadak 2 and Homebound, said that the films were tightly budgeted, which allowed them to keep them profitable. “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, the box office was never a concern for these two films. 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,” he said.
The filmmaker said that Dharma Productions films usually recover their costs from other sources of revenue, like musical and digital rights, even before they hit the theatres. This allows them to limit loss-making films. “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 ₹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,” Somen explained.
About Dhadak 2 and Homebound box office
Dhadak 2, directed by Shazia Iqbal, starred Siddhant Chaturvedi and Triptii Dimri in the lead, earned just ₹29 crore at the box office. However, the film was praised critically and trended on Netflix when it was released there six weeks after its theatrical release. Similarly, Homebound, Neeraj Ghaywan’s directorial comeback, made only ₹3 crore at the box office after a limited theatrical release. Starring Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa, and Janhvi Kapoor, the film is India’s official entry for the Oscars this year.
