Karan Johar opens up about the hate towards ‘Brahmastra’, says celebrating others' ruin is not a good thing

Filmmaker Karan Johar recently opened up about the constant stream of negativity faced by his latest production, ‘Brahmastra’. While he did not take any names, the film producer-talk show host admitted that he really detested the way some people in the industry celebrated others' misfortunes.

Although many trade analysts have described the Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt starrer as a hit, there has been many debates on the box office collections of the movie. Many critics had called out the veracity of Brahmastra’s box-office reports. Among them were actress Kangana Ranaut and ‘The Kashmir Files’ director Vivek Agnihotri.


In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, the ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ director opened up on being a target of hate and ill-will. Johar did not name anyone but offered some sane advice for his detractors. “ While I have no problems with everyone’s opinions, I sometimes feel sad, because within the industry we have some types of people, who are working for the industry and have been with the industry for years… you can be critical but being negative is not nice. We will accept criticism with open arms, it is very imperative, everyone needs that policing," he said.

The film-maker also enumerated the thin line that separates being critical and being negative in one's reaction. "But I feel sometimes, some people push that from being critical to being negative. Sometimes I feel we are all part of the same industry, so don’t you want this film to work… Sometimes people within the industry, who call themselves members of the media also, celebrate the ruination of a film. I feel that is never a good thing,” the filmmaker was quoted as saying to the entertainment portal.

Despite mixed reviews, the Ayan Mukerji directorial has gone on to amass about Rs 425 crore at the box-office worldwide. It is the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2022, and currently the third-highest grossing film, only behind ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ and Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’.

Johar also admitted that what naysayers shared on social media did affect him to an extent. He was extremely stressed before the movie’s release. “I was humongously stressed. The night prior, I could not sleep a wink, and I was not able to tell Ayan this, or Ranbir or Alia, because I felt like I had to be like ‘yay, we’ve done this, it’s great, it is going to be massive and don’t worry’. There were all kinds of reviews coming up (after the release) and people were saying either it was amazing or the opposite of it. I felt it (Brahmastra) was such a new animal in the jungle, people were having adverse opinions,” he revealed in the same interview.