 Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Ah! Josh! Welcome back to our stupid reactions, you idiots. I'm Corbin. Hi, stupid babies. I'm a schmuck. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter for juicy content. If you care. Thank you to everybody's supports on Patreon. You love the Patreon, baby. Thank you. Thank you. Subscribe if you haven't, and hit the like button. Why? Why? Why? It helps the algorithm. And that's all we ever want. That's right. The only reason we are alive is to help out the YouTube algorithm. That's my purpose. Yes. Uh, what? Because Google needs more money. Yeah. And consider us, you know, we refer to ourselves as I. We are the googly eyes. Thank you. Thank you. I thought we were the bodywood lickers. We are that, too. Yeah. As long as the boots have cocaine. Yes. Tasty boots, by the way. Tasty. Speaking of tasty... Especially when they've got the run of your sweat off. Speaking of tasty boots today, we've got a Karen Johar interview. Nice. And this is actually from a channel called Masters Union. But this is the business of Bollywood. It's a podcast with... No one better to talk to than him. Karen Johar. So I think it helps a little bit more into the business side. Great. Of everything. Which will involve obviously a few things. Cocaine. Yes. And crime. Yes. Yeah. Sexual favors, of course. Perfect. Yeah. But that's about it. Always love listening to Karen Johar. He's such an intelligent man. As much as people like to rag on him, he's... Which as we know, he didn't care as long as you're talking about him. Yeah. He's made that real clear. Yeah. He just doesn't want to not be talked about. Exactly. That's his worst nightmare. If you're talking about him, he's making... Yeah. He's making money. Yeah. Here we go. Many of our new generation movie stars can have the aura and magic of Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Amir Khan, Mr. Prachan Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan. Like the Kanjithik Roshan, these kinds of stars. I think it's the... They were the last of the Mohikas. Showing the middle finger to all the, you know, people with logic, intellectuals, critics. Somewhere, I feel we lost our conviction in Hindi cinema. And my thing is, Ratham, I never lied to the filmmaker. So at Masters Union Business School, one of the most requested courses we have is on the business of Indian cinema. We hear movies making 100 crores, 200 crores, 500 crores all the time. These numbers are thrown around. But very little is known about how the money is made, how much is made, and actually who makes it. So to discuss all of this, I have with me the one and only Karan Chauhar. Hi, Ratham. I'm very happy to be on your show. And had you told me that you're going to sound so official and so business-centric, I would have wanted to suit myself. Ratham, I just... I look like a cake for my jog. But it's fine. That's part of your brand. It is, it is. That's part of your brand. But I'm just happy to meet you and happy to chat about everything that you have on the cards. Hey, Karan. So Karan, you're one of the finest filmmakers. But today, I'm going to request you to not wear your filmmaker hat, but wear your businessman hat. Sure. From you about the business of Bollywood business of Indian cinema. I want to start off with your journey as an entrepreneur. So you inherited Dharma Studios from your father as a small business, small medium-sized business. And today you've turned it into essentially a large conglomerate, right? Can you take us back to your initial days? There's some fact. There's some humor and there's some drama attached to that question, really. So quintessentially, I'm not at heart a business person. Numbers evade me. I'm not strong with financial calculations and manipulations. Those are things that Apurva, my CEO, he's like a finance head. So he is my childhood best friend and went to college with me. And then when my dad passed away in 2004, I just found myself very alone. I felt because I had no family, no one to help me. Because there was a strange thing that had happened. And that kind of envelopes and encompasses what I was all about. The fourth day after my father passed away, we have a prayer meeting. And I came back to the office sitting all alone thinking, how am I going to take this company? I don't even know where my money is. I don't know. Because my dad did everything for mom and me. I was totally spoiled. I mean, like, I literally one day came back from an IFA award and my father wanted me to sign checks and I wrote lots of love on the checks. So I was like, I was that disconnected from finance. And at the fourth day, I was sitting in my office and one man walked in and said, I'm your charter accountant, you know, and he said, a very dear friend of the family wants to meet you. He came with a letter that my dad had left behind for me, which was a very business letter. It wasn't an emotional one because my dad had cancer. He knew he was, you know, he had a short life beyond after he was diagnosed with cancer. And that letter actually said, you know, where the funds were in terms of the, you know, your mutual fund, your investments. He even said, these are people you trust. These are people you don't trust. This is how you should take the business forward. And it became kind of my Bible. At that point of time, like, and this family friend brought it and he said, Karan, this is only because he knows you are clueless and he was worried and scared. And while he was alive, you wouldn't have never wanted this conversation to happen because it was too emotional at that time. So I took that Bible. Karan Johar is a product of nepotism. Amazing. What? Things about bank accounts and bank where money is where property investments, everything like it was like literally called up a pulva who then agreed to leave his entire life in London and move back and baggage overnight. And that became like his reference point as well. You know, that's how he started really Dharma productions in its glory that it lies in today. And I hope it continues. But that began our journey. So that's how I started in 2004. And I remember we were making a film called Carl. And I was like, maybe we should make it, you know, and I remember Shahrukh called me and said, actually it's a smaller film. You should make it. Learn your mistakes. Make your mistakes. Make your mistakes. Make your mistakes. So we produce Carl clueless about like how to produce, how to sell. And then one after the other problem, it just became like, that's how Dharma productions. And from 2008 in that respect, the studio that we built, the studio model that we built is very nascent. You know, we actually, it's, it's 14 years old. Yeah. 2008 is when we produced wake up, said Dostana. I hate love stories. Good one. All those things started around that time, 2008, 2009. And then of course, you know, things just continued. So it started from two people who were very passionate, best friends from school and college, almost like a startup. Yeah. Like it's almost like it was like a Dharma first at that time, like we were doing a startup and learning on the job, making our mistakes. Only thing we had was deep commitment to the company and a lot of passion to take it forward. Very interesting. So in these almost 80, 20 years since, how has the company evolved? Is it now a corporate or do you think it's still a family business at the heart of it? So it's a bit of both and much more family because I function like that. I have a very open door policy. If you come to my office and you want to, and you're working with me and there's something you need to speak to me about, you can just walk in if it's an urgent situation. There's no email I need. There's no email exchange. The CEO only one running it like a corporate. So all of us are creative walking around in our track pants and like literally creative filmmakers. He has actually aligned the company to what it is. He's made it corporate. He observes casual Fridays. Like, like, like, like, so he's the only one suddenly actually a poor one. And I'm like, Oh, it's Friday. Like HR department. Yeah. He has all the HR department. We have the posh department and we have the legal department. All the financial. He has it all down to the tea. You've been in a corporate setting. Why we are structured. We are organized. We are disciplined and we are corporate. So what is your relationship like with them? Do you guys disagree? Do you guys fight? Oh my God. I don't fit well in a corporate department. Yeah, me either. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And see the thing is when you're a filmmaker, there's a lot of abandon in your decisions. There's a lot of like, there's a lot of instinct, which I can't explain to a business person. No. Like, if you're a business mind and like, I say, I want to, I want to invest money in this first time filmmaker and he's going to like, but has he worked with someone before? I'm like, no, what is his credentials? None. What did you like about him? I can't explain it. I have an instinct. I have no experience. Everybody said that he seemed, today he made my master. Yeah. But at that point in time, everybody was like, what the hell are you doing? Like, why are you making him with this person? Like, he's done nothing. He's just been an assistant on two films. And in those films, it didn't seem like he had anything. But I said, no, he has a ticking brain. He's a genius according to him. So it's like, I can't explain to who are some of these things. So he and I are always, but I always get scared of my meetings with him because he pulls me up about my personal expenditures. He pulls me up about my indulgence with filmmakers. Being a filmmaker myself and a director. I'm always indulging the directors when they come and say, we're over budget by five crores. We are, you know, we are OB by 10. And I'm like, but why? And then they're very, they're giving me that look. Very carnival. How tough it is. And I'm totally buying it till I put a box in and saying, just, you know, calm down. Like, this is me. You know, these are investments. You have to see your verticals. These are your recoveries. This is your budget. This is your PNA cost. Now at the end of the day, that's how you're so simple thing. And while we're at this, we'll tell you, if you want to be safe on a film, then your cost, your recovery from digital rights, satellite rights, music rights, and perceived theatrical, like average theatrical, what it can be in the worst average case scenario, should kind of equal your cost of production plus publicity. Suppose my film is, and I'll explain to everybody watching this. Suppose now my cost of my production is 80 crores, or rather 75. And including the actor fee. Including that's 80. That's above the line. And then we have 15 for PNA, which is, so it's 90. Now if I'm getting 40 from digital, and I'm getting 20 from satellite, and I'm getting 15 from music, then I am, I'm like, I'm already at 75. My cost is 90. So I'm presuming my film will do about 40 crores. If I do 40, then for 55% of that comes home. Theatrically. Okay, if I do 40, so then I'm like, okay, I can make this one. India has so many avenues, not just streaming, because they have the music rights. But if you have to take a chance, you have to take a chance. Then you have to say like, okay, now my film needs to, my break even point of my film is 80 crores, NDOC. Net box office. 70. Then that's the time you're taking a risk, because in this climate you don't know what will work and what won't. But this simple mathematics I always do for a filmmaker. I'm like, satellite, digital, music, average theatrical. So like every movie is essentially like a start of your investing in. Yes. Right? So you have to do the cash flow analysis. And then the cash flow analysis is something that Apoora looks at because there's a lot of rotation money. Money comes from one place goes into the other. So at the end of the year you have to ask how you did, what your report looks like. Got it. So let's take a step back. Over these 20 years, you've taken a lot of risks. You've launched new faces, you've launched new genres. A lot of your bets have worked out. And I'm sure a lot of your bets probably did not work out as well. Can you share some of the lows that people might not have heard about? So sometimes there are movies that do really well in terms of perception, but they haven't done well economically for you. But I tell you what, it happened. So when I was making student of the year, the film did really well. It did 70 plus crores for newcomers. It was the number one newcomer film which had done 70 crores and had done really well overseas and it had done. But I had spent like crazy on that film. So we were down on that film by 15 to 20 crores because I had spent so much on the film. So then I looked at Apurva and I said, I said, you know, we're going to make this up because these three are going to become stars. And he was like, you're talking nonsense. How do you know this? So we had signed them on a contract, three film contract, which they subsidized. So I said, it'll come around. So then we immediately made Haseethopaseeth with said. We made two states, Badri and Hamti with Varun. And they were at subsidized numbers because that was as our contract. So eventually that shortfall actually got covered because of the future slate. The dream movie package. But I remember the downs were like when Kurban failed, I remember it was one of the earlier films that I had produced. And I really liked it. And it was, I felt like second year, you know, I felt even more upset because I felt like my instinct failed. I was all for Kurban. So when it failed and flopped, I was like, shit. And so that got me really upset. And the second time it happened was when Kalank released. And a lot of love and passion and money had gone into it. And I feel Abhishek Varman is one of our finest minds. It didn't do well. And it was rejected from Devan. And somehow that I could understand why, but because so much love, money, attention, time, energy, passion had gone into it. It just kind of breaks your heart. But the other films that have failed that Dharma, I kind of always knew. Like I knew that we made one film or the films that have failed. I saw it coming because when I used to see that. And my thing is, Pratham, I never lie to the filmmaker. I lie to everyone outside or walk out of that. Because I need to boost the morale of my company. So, you know, I was wondering which movies or actors have been some of your best investments? Are there certain genres today that are performing better than the others? When you're deciding which movie to finance to create, you look at the actor, you look at the script, you look at, or is it like a bunch of things? One thing is, it's very clear. The digital revolution has divided genres. So, certain genres absolutely should not be theatrical. So, slice of life, human dramas, romantic love stories. Like just very rom-com-y love stories, not dramatic love stories. Like Kabir Singh's a dramatic love story. So, that still can be theatrical. The rom-com would be like a naurik too, which we made. Or like we made like, you know, salam namaste, rom-com. Like that, you know, that kind of rom-com is now operating only digitally. That sucks. Little intense crime, murder, mystery. Like the ones that are small in scale. Having said that, Drishyam has proven that wrong also, but that's a franchise. But there are certain genres that will just not work unless you have the big theatrical experience. So, the films that will work will be horror comedies. Very popular genre. Just horror may not, just comedy may not. Horror comedy is a big genre. Big events, spectacle, doom, pathan, like, you know, like war. Big spectacle. Then of course, the Indian big spectacle, Bahubali, Aarara. You know, the KGF, these are the Rappushpa, which is rooted in India and yet a spectacle. Ramashtra, yeah. Ramashtra is rooted in India, big spectacle. So, these are the theatrical. Then there are always the outliers. Like the ones that will not conform to my theories here, but actually breakthrough suddenly in the theatre. No one saw Kantara coming, right? Yeah, absolutely. So, is it possible Irfan would never have a theatrical release if he was still around? Probably, probably. Watched it for its genius. Everyone's minds blown away by Kantara. Kantara goes on to do, the footfalls are close to the KGF, footfalls in Karnataka. That's crazy. That's crazy because the cost-to-profit on Kantara is massive. It's probably the, I would only compare Kantara, cost-to-profit to a film released in the 70s called Jai Santoshima, which actually had come so close to the business of Sholing. Similarly, Kantara has come so close to KGF and it's made in 15 or 18 crores from what I know. It's crazy. What did it turn? The worldwide could be touching a thousand crores. I mean, it's crazy. So, if I pay as a consumer 100 rupees for a ticket, how is that 100 rupees divided amongst the actors, the directors, the producer, the theatre? Unfortunately, a pie of that is with the movie stars, which should not be the case, because it's not that every movie star can open a film at every given point of time, but you're paying them top dollar. So, I think I would say if it's a big director, then the divide is literally 50 to the star. And then if your director is big, then maybe 30 to the director. And the rest of the technical teams, 50 to the actor. I don't know how that breaks down in Hollywood. 50 as in percent. I think he's meaning 50 percent. 50 percent of the budget? Yeah. That they don't do that here? No. Unless you own the production company and your name is Tom Cruise. Any of our new directors, movie stars, can have the aura and magic of Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Amir Khan, Mr. Bachchanak Shekumar, Ajay Devgan, like the Karate Cross. It's going to be maybe 20 percent. Yeah, maybe. On the high end. Yeah. Today's stars will be relevant, famous. They'll be famous. See, fame and superstardom are two different things. Famous even anybody can be. Like you can become like start a YouTube channel and you can become famous. You can be an influence on Instagram and become famous. But are you a superstar? That where like people stood in lines just because of you. That ain't happening anymore. So there are two economics. One is a superstar economics. No, not in Hindi. Yeah. And so you think that... In the superstar economics, 60 or 70 percent goes to that. And not superstard could be maybe 20, 30 and then divided by if the director is big, then the writer, then the technicians, then it gets equally divided after that. Got it. I have a question, which is, when you spoke, we touched upon this a little bit. I want to double click. Can a movie be a flop but still make money? Can a movie be a hit and still not make money? Yes. Economically driven. A film could be a flop and make money because you managed to keep your costs in control. Like I gave you that math. Suppose I made my film really tight and my recoveries are high. Suppose I made my film in 40 crores with PNAs at 50 because it's a smaller film. But my theatrical, as I said, my digital and my satellite rights are 60. So even if it's bombs, I've already made my money. And a lot of times that has known to happen. That has known to happen. And you could make a massive movie and it could do a massive number but you spend so much money that you haven't been able to cover your costs and you couldn't have lost. Like I told you I was going to be here. Like I made a hit film and lost money. So cost optimization is more important perhaps sometimes. Like Yash Chopra once told me a film never fails, a budget does. Interesting. So now let's sort of change gear a little bit. Other than the production house they actually make movies. If I'm an entrepreneur and if I want to start up in the business of cinema, what are the opportunities I have? Like how does one start up in Bollywood industry? If I'm not an actor, if I'm not a filmmaker. There have been, there have been success stories that are really like Gunit Manga for example who has Sikhi Antigenman. I give her as an example where she's really come up the tough way. She knew no one in the industry. She worked with Anurag Kashyap. Made some films with very interesting new like Vasan Bala who's just broken through with Monica or my darling. Made his first film Peddlers. Go Gunit was part of it. She made another film and she made Lunchbox. Then when she made Lunchbox I saw Lunchbox. The film had already garnered a lot of international love. I presented it along with UTV. It kind of made money. So Gunit Manga is one example. Sikhiya Entertainment is one example of a start up breakthrough. But that's, Pratham very rare. It's very tough. It's not easy. What if I don't want to be a filmmaker but I still want to be in the industry as a start up. So can I maybe have let's say like a start up that does interactive digital work for companies? Of course you can. That you call. If you're not wanting to fund a film or produce a film there are so many verticals you could be part of. If you want to start like a, if you hire the right people and you are advised by the right people within the industry and start like a publicity agency or like a PR agency or something that makes marketing posters that you could do but the thing is also people who have understood the DNA of the film industry. Unless you're smart and you come, suppose Pratham comes in and I say, okay I want to start like a lucrative business in the movies. What can I do? And I'm like, I would advise you to get into film production. You have to know a lot about it. So you say, what do you want to do? I say, but I know tech so maybe I can start a digital agency. Or animation. You know I can start. Yeah, but animation is also VFX. If you have the right play so you want to learn, you know, VFX is such a big component. Yeah. Today that needs only very technical and people who understand tech and is a shortage of that. Yes. So if there was a VFX company today. Oh yeah. That actually did some they could do really well. But it also needs some relationship really. So the first thing I would do is get an insider on board with you. It just helps. Yeah. It's all about a lot. Sometimes people just might be very talented. The entire industry is built on relationships. Relationships. Right. What's the point? And so now the other aspect of this question is that do you hire MBA students? Or do you hire engineering students? Is there a need for them with the film industry? Of course. Absolutely. There's so many of them in my financial. My own CEO is an MBA himself. People who I hit my CFO is one. Like so many. And there are people in the legal departments who've done their MBA. Like we have I'm sure in my office of our strength of four or five hundred. I'm sure we have a hundred MBAs. Really? Okay. We hear about Netflix doing data crunching and that's how they arrive at what movies to build who to cast. Yeah. Do you have data crunches as well? So we do a lot of we started recently. I've always been a very firm believer of research when a film is made. Or Max and now Yuba have started like these research screenings and data and analysis points on screenplays and songs. I feel very strongly that the screenplay and the initials those have to be instinctive. Like I don't want you to become so mechanical process. It's eventually a form of expression is a creative art form. But I do believe that when the film is ready because it's for an audience then you have to treat it like selling it like a product but first go by our gut go by and say they don't go to put everything to research then show it to or Max show it to Yuba and get your feedback. We get scores from them. We'd make they get suggestions recommendations and we alter them and it's worked very well in our favor. And so these MBA students that you have or that you'd like to have in the future they can help with marketing they can help with PR they can help with so many things. There's marketing there's legal there's PR but yet like these jobs are not posted anywhere right I think like you know relationships who you know that's the entire summed up the entire industry at every level who do you know from financial background which is why there's a lot of families they're probably with the headunters and telling them that they're open to you know the entertainment industry because if I meet all the heads of all the channels at Amazon at least everybody has come from a formal education maybe an MBA maybe other degrees you know and that has nothing to do with the MBA should I assume that you're coming to Master's Union for recruitment? Yes I will I think I will and I'll be happy and I think as I said you never know where you'll find the payment for something. Absolutely. So you know on the business of Indian cinema what would be the curriculum? What would the curriculum look like? What would you teach? What would be the titles and the topics? The first thing that I would do is the history of Indian cinema little bit we have to touch on that the first I think the first topic or the first part of the course would be let's deep dive into the 50s onwards let's not go before that but 50s which was the Guru Datira where cinema was about like the 50s we got independent so there was a delayed reaction in cinema so in the 16s we had the yahoo Shamikapur phase where movies moved to the hill stations everything was happy and got resolved quite easily in the end without much drama then there was the emergency and then there was the angst in the common man and Salim Javed created the angry young man anti-establishment and Bachchan ruled and then action came in for the first time in Telugu and Tamil cinema you know which also the hero-hero started from the 70s 80s went into South Indian remakes 90s brought back love and then killed action with you know with Dilwale Doola where we are your account it was a mixture of romance love and globalization which created Shah Rukh Khan history is the first history will tell you the order of events that's the first the second thing is if you had to have a business then you would talk about budgets and recoveries yes you know which is what we just spoke about then we talk about terminologies what is gross what is net what is entertainment chart what is ticket price plus what comes home like people need to know gross net worldwide gross worldwide net net and we still like what is then then we talk about genres that have performed in the business which genres haven't what is now today revenue streams I would cover yes absolutely revenue streams who are the who are the players in the negotiation also it's a big part it's a big part what is the hardest dealer you have had to negotiate every deal is tough because everybody comes with their defenses up you want to come you want top dollar they don't want to be top dollar and you have to find a mid-pass is it harder to negotiate with actors or with actors so you must understand that there's only delusion is one disease that has no vaccination so I can't like give to people give people two shots and say okay crazy thing is they actually negotiate with the actor I can't tell them the truth rather than the actors representation representation you ask me what you open to if you're opening to five crores actually give me five crores are these difficult conversations yes very difficult because you want to be polite right you don't want to hurt or hurt somebody because eventually their stars fragile egos they come with a lot of management then their management comes who are bigger stars sometimes and I have a management agency of my own and the first thing I keep telling them is please you must work for the producer must not work for the actor and of course not an un-pragmatic producer impractical producer but sometimes making sense and giving you data and analysis listen to it in business schools we teach through case studies sometimes so I have a question for the following for marketing I love the way Aamir Khan marketed for example the whole Rajiv Irani series three idiots PK even Dungal he was very clever devices to market I felt like those are case studies and how he marketed the film what about branding positioning some happened by default how did Kavikushi Kabat become K3G I called it once somewhere why am I called Kjo because Navrata Joshi who was writing for Outlook magazine was called Namjo in the office and so she when she did a cover story on me she called it the Kjo effect that got stuck now it's just one article one magazine so branding sometimes cannot it's not organic all the time I can create a brand sometimes but very rarely I really work towards it if I work towards like my films marketing in a specific way to create brand value in my in my understanding it's inorganic it just happens as a magic created what about budgeting it's a case study for budgeting and Tara and Tara it's obviously the one risk taking Brahmastra alright massive risk taking huge budget crazy idea I mean just left to the good lord in universe doesn't cause you sleepless nights that was one film I mean I think Ayyan was so busy trying to deliver the film that the stress was all the people around us like I literally popped a pill every night that one I was just not really even when there was there was praise and there was criticism and there was so many opinions around the first time I was like just tell me if you liked it otherwise I don't want to know but I was so defensive so I was so nervous so I became defensive what about strategy just the overall filmmaking strategy every film should be a strategic film but where did strategy work I think KGF was a great strategy you know when they decided to make it into two films they opened up an entire they opened up an entire Pushpa the same thing happened so obviously KGF started something this one part one part two things is a very huge KGF phenomenon if you know you had to bring in masters from the cinema industry to come and co-teach or you know give guest lectures as part of your course who would you call for movie promotions myself yeah absolutely all right see you're good enough for that what about data is it even does really good with data or max or max or have a really like informal chat with the gentleman who runs box office in there all right what about negotiating fees I suppose calling a studio head maybe Bhushan Kumar he struck so many deals that's true if Bollywood was a startup all right who would you have as your CEO like who would you want as a CEO Shahrukh Khan Shahrukh Khan of the CEO who would be the CFO CMO Chief Marketing Officer Karan Johar Karan Johar Chief Technical Officer also Shahrukh Khan I would say he could double did great huge technical mind what about CHRO Human Resources you can manage people who's good with the it's very tough to think of anybody else but me all right we'll stick with you we'll stick with you we'll be trying very hard give me that marketing job and give me the management that's all I'm going to do I can't be anyone for finance, etc. none of that so let's talk a little about the future of cinema where we are headed say you are 100 crores to invest how do you split in between Dharma your traditional business and the mathematics your OTT initiative what excites you more well right now it would be 60 Dharma 40 Dharma but who knows in four years it could be 60 Dharma again 40 Dharma because digital is a huge part and it's also much more a short money back because you have that while my heart lies in filmmaking and I hope Dharma is actually 80 and that's right but that's not the case your hoop is 80-20 yeah but reality will be 60-40 eventually tilted on one of the sides and where do you see that tent happening like so I think if we manage to be successful then the tilt will be in terms of dramatic but if we manage to have Pushpas and KJFs back to back then who knows and one cantara so on and who would want I mean my dream is I may Pushpa in the same year KJF I mean I have to go to the mountains and I'll just say I'll wave from there this year I did somewhere that the Telugu industry did 28% market share in terms of revenues and the Hindi cinema industry did 27% yeah right so if you had 100 crores to invest again how would you split it between the Hindi industry versus the rest the thing is this is a hypothetical question that I would never because I'm not equipped to make a Telugu film I don't know how to make a Telugu film so hypothetically if I was because this is not but I would obviously invest because the Telugu audiences are much more faithful to their movie stars they come out in huge numbers the North America numbers the Middle East numbers are massive I would obviously invest if I was just a filmmaker who didn't have I have so much emotion my heart lies in Hindi cinema but you're asking me a business person I think Telugu is the farm all you could do in that so 100 crores you have where does the money go 70, 30 70, 30 63 let me just be kind 60, 40 I might be murdered for saying this but the only thing is that I'm only saying this because as a pure astute business person who has emotions if you give me 100 crores I want to put 100 in Hindi cinema but I'm asking as an outside perspective absolutely are there any competitors or trends that keep you up at night you know is it something I'm just actually what keeps me up is all of us who have lost our core conviction let me tell you Pratham when I started in the movies when I wrote Kuch Kuch Hothai where a child is reading 8 letters left by her mother conviction because actually I have 6 year old kids they ain't reading any letters they are learning about my ex life it's not happened it was so much conviction everything was conviction everything that college looked how it did I insisted on that summer camp which has no roots in our society and it's not here and nothing was not a good one it's not a good one I wanted this was my London this was my Delhi house so it looked like nothing like Delhi there was a whole Diwali gathering inside not one cow outside you know there was a whole Diwali the whole world was inside there was not one cow parked outside there was no conviction so there was somewhere I feel we lost our conviction in Hindi cinema because we started worrying too much about the applause and praise on social media including yes the critics and what they have to say those stars that we are doled out on friday and worried about headlines those all critics have now I thought Brahmastra had a lot of conviction yes it did and that's why I did the money and it didn't and the reviews are not great at all I think for India to produce its avatar or its Harry Potter franchise or Game of Thrones it already has Harry Potter or even not Hunger Games the Korean one in the name we parasite no the TV show storytelling in vision human resources to do that we have that in our Indian cinema texture and DNA we don't have the exhibition we don't have the screens you have 10,000 screens you're competing with 100,000 screens even more the world is is available to watch avatar our films don't open to those we don't have those screen count the moment we have a cinema in every square kilometer or every two kilometers in our country in our two-tier cities in our villages and towns like the sky's the limit there are so many people who don't have access to cinemas let's say there's an Indian or a Kannada movie and we duck it in English do you think there would come a time where you know look what happened with Aararaa Tatham it caused such a massive stir with the media in North America to the extent that it's a Golden Globe nominee nominee as best film like that's massive a best foreign language film like it's on a crazy level then he won Raja Moli sir won a critiques award like we're already nearly there we just need to make many more Aararaa's film of conviction much more is the money there the money is there in the town studios you have the biggest international studios why won this when they didn't know but we have just won Raja Moli that's a limiting factor not the money we just use about Amazon purchasing NGM as studios right has Amazon ever given you an offer no do you think that will ever happen who knows maybe after this good idea yeah competing with Raja Moli sir I'm not close to it at all honestly I was I was close to it five or seven years ago I was worried that you know my brand my company my dad raised it from all emotional ideologies were ruling my mindset at that time but in the pragmatic world me and a full work discussed it we're like brothers running this company together I'm like if we need to raise money or sell stake in our enterprise it's only to enhance our company not for me to like pack money away and run away I mean I need to make my company bigger the only reason I can do it the only way I can do it is if I have more money for me to then take more and more chances and sensibly invest that money in the infrastructure of Dharma Productions Hermatic Entertainment so I can make it grow so after three decades you know what are you motivated by today is it revenue is it awards are you looking to change the world with your cinema or are you just having too much fun but what am I still still looking for I'm still looking for like my film not the money in my bank but just that lovely blockbuster number like I still want that I still want like I want that Bahubali number that 500 crores I want that film I want to wake up to those big numbers like that's still such a drive it's not because I want to take that money home please it's much more high of a film it's like a report card it's like you want to have a plus a plus a plus a cross you just don't want to be happy with you want any plus everywhere and that's what box office is such a I've always been so enamoured with the box office only because of the fact that it's such a validation it's such a it's such a screaming out loud audience screaming at you saying we love your work and you said that's what I thought that really I wake up every morning hoping for those numbers in those films there are a lot of MBA students students in general watching this right what is like your one final message to all the many people who are for various reasons have taken up you know educational decisions decisions basis on perhaps their family perhaps because you know peer pressure perhaps societal pressures because everybody feels you have to have a stable job but there are those who are doing those who have MBAs and financial degrees but they have creative in a kind of emotions feelings to all of you I say like the entertainment industry awaits your mind because you're a strong balance of academia and passion and that's what I as a filmmaker is always seeking so if you are one of those people who have a creative bent of mind but have done a different kind of academic academic path if you've taken on a different academic path that doesn't mean that the film industry the entertainment industry is close to you it just means that you have to just be on that note you know we have at Masters Union the way we teach is we teach students by making them actually run businesses and some of our students have actually started small companies where they make small products and we have taken all those products and made a nice small hamper for you thanks thanks Pratap this is a Masters Union hamper and I love it absolutely I hope you like it and my congratulations and congratulations to all your students who while studying their own startups and beginning the process of their dreams yeah I mean the only way you can learn to make films and making films the only way you can learn business is by actually getting on and doing it yes well done thank you so much for your time thanks Pratap I appreciate it it's great to chat I really can't wait sounds good thanks so obviously you I have a question for you obviously you're a very creative mind obviously I know that is there anything in the business side of filmmaking that you think you would be good at um the one thing in the business side yeah so not actor not director not anything there's only one thing I would consider on the business side only one and that's writing checks for people who have the money now to do the projects that they passionately want to do and I see it and I believe in it that is it that's a producer exact producer produce yeah write checks exact produce where whoever the director is you're there to give them the money and also to be whatever eyes you can to see something give them advice but let the director have creative control over everything and just take that gamble of investment on things that you believe in see you see that happen a lot with actors who get in a position of financial power they then put their money into projects that they believe in mention the horror film that we watched unexpectedly out of nowhere and it turned out that Andy Serkis exact produced it there's only one reason he did that he probably believed in the people making it and said I'm financially in a place I can help you make your that would be thrilling to be in a place where somebody who badly wants to make this movie they believe in and you can fund it for them and then you make money off it and make their film that's it that's the only thing I would do outside of acting yeah absolutely and obviously I think your strong suit is definitely obviously more on the creative side for sure especially if we're talking like CFO no yeah a lot a lot of this for me puts me in deer in a headlights a lot of the conversation I could see he's getting excited talking to Karan Johar about it and there's people who would get so excited about the thought of the budget and the money and the negotiating that for me is really close to sitting in an algebra class yeah for sure no interest yeah but it's important oh yeah it is the way he's talking about you know he's always been enamored by box office he's allowed to be yeah he's the guy that makes the money or loses the money exactly I've always said if you want to care about box office be a producer if you're an audience yeah it's people said isn't it like telling the it brings more people in and people talking about the film because it's made so money because I put something on Twitter I said can we make box office numbers illegal to see to the public so people would just talk about the film right I said to that person that said the box office allows people to go see it because it's made so much I was like they would just talk about how good the movie is everything everywhere all at once yeah that's what happened to everything everywhere all at once not how much it made exactly and obviously that's how it used to be that's what happened to Koda that used to be an Indian cinema as well it's just a recent thing that people and American cinema I remember the change that happened in newspapers because newspapers used to be the place that you go to to find a change that happened only films that got legitimately good reviews would have critics say masterpiece wonderful and that gave you a sense of wow this thing is worth seeing but you can buy those kinds of things now it doesn't mean anything that has been replaced by the stamps from film festivals now and the that used to be more about word of mouth it wasn't about getting up you know toys in your happy meal or getting the most advertising dollars so that you see the poster on buses and I agree I would I would like it if there was let the talk about the business be behind the closed doors about whether the thing and if it was profitable that's important because then they can make more we've always said this what matters about the money is whether or not that type of movie is going to be made more that's really what matters and even then thankfully there are filmmakers and there are producers out there who have the balls to make stuff regardless of what the economic outcome of that thing is going to be because they have a vision and they have a passion to make what they want to make because they're focusing on the artistry above all else yeah I did think it was super interesting though obviously the amount of avenues India has for revenue yeah they've got the OTT rights right and those can sometimes be huge to be on the film but they also have they sell the music to T-Series to make to have the music or they sell to see with wire whoever the music they get a percentage for that they get a satellite he said they so I guess if it goes to TV how much ever they pay for that and then there's so many of these different avenues you can make a profit yeah on a lower budget film before your film even comes out and then a lot of people think that the box office is like they've lost all their money right box office for Indian cinema seems to be gravy where it's reversed here OTT is gravy you put a film in the theaters and then you watch the revenue and if it doesn't do well you think to yourself hopefully we can recoup that on streaming versus India it's okay we've got our streaming platforms and we have our music stuff and we have the merchandising and then we've got the box office that can come in because like he said they not only don't have the same ratio of ticket price and profit margin that American cinema does they don't have the same number of screens available to them that we do another thing that was crazy was the if you're paying your actor 50% of your budget which is insane it's insanity and I'm not non-advocate because obviously we've had heydays obviously Johnny Depps and the Tom Cruise the Will Smiths were all making 20 million a movie true but that was not those budgets were $200 million or at least at least right around when you include advertising 100 million those actors had fan bases that would draw people in correct it's not around anymore like they're not making that money anymore well Johnny's and those aren't making that money another thing I thought was interesting in this was the I would I would be shocked if Indian producers didn't want to get North American audiences more of course right because just by ticket prices my ticket price pays for I don't know how many but like a ticket if 20 times more expensive here to see a movie than it is if a normal ticket is 100 rupees right that's what buck buck 25 buck 25 our normal tickets are between if it's a matinee it could be low as $10 that's cheapest you're gonna find which would be $10 is gonna be roughly 780 rupees yeah if it's not a matinee IMAX it could be as high as 25 bucks Friday night IMAX is gonna be 25, 30 bucks so on average you're spending $15 that's the average all year long it's gonna average out 15 bucks for a movie ticket which that's that's gonna be that mostly goes to the production house 1100 rupees movie theater don't make a lot off of the ticket barely any actually I've worked at movie theaters and I've asked them that most all goes back to the production that's why the popcorn I would be maybe that's why Telugu does so well because one of the reasons is because there's a large Telugu audience here and their tickets cost way more than they do in India yeah and I would just be shocked if they didn't try to appeal sometimes more to western audiences yeah to get them to go because you can make a lot more money and profit back that faster if you get a $15 ticket as opposed to a $1.25 exactly equals to yeah I just thought that was interesting yeah I did too anyways yeah so it's always nice to hear the mind of Kierndrow and I think he's more I think he just happens to be in a a position to where he needs to care about the business side because he has to who he is but I think he's more on the other side I think he's more of a creative I think he is too and I think he has a lot of the he's probably as a producer when you have a company with a few hundred people whose lives depend on the success of your company and that if your films don't do well at the box office and you continue to lose money they could lose their livelihoods and then you can't do what you're doing I mean if you wanted to he could just stop what he's doing just direct but I also think like most people in those worlds they have this love-hate relationship with the stress on the one hand they wish they didn't have to deal with it yeah yeah yeah absolutely anyways so yeah that was fine so I think his film I think is that March or April? Rocky or his rend-in they're the rend-in Raleigh film which soon it's the spring yeah I think it's March or April I can't remember but anyways very excited for that let us know in the videos we can react to of his or others down below