It is uncanny but it is worth giving a thought to. Ever since Karan Johar and Rakesh Roshan have stopped distributing their films through Yash Chopra’s distribution offices the world over, the films of all the three filmmakers have not had consistently great runs at the box-office. Time was when Yash Chopra, Rakesh Roshan and Karan Johar’s films did super-hit business. At that time, both, Roshan and Johar used to give their production ventures to Yash Raj Film Distributors for releasing in either all or many circuits including Overseas.
But then, Karan Johar took UTV as the distribution partner for his several films and sold My Name Is Khan to Hollywood studio Fox. Similarly, Rakesh Roshan sold his Kites to Reliance Big. Ever since the changes have happened, the films of all the three banners – Yash Raj Films (Yash Chopra), Filmkraft (Rakesh Roshan) and Dharma Productions (Karan Johar) – have not had consistently excellent or extraordinary runs at the ticket windows. Yash Chopra’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi worked big time but his films like Dil Bole Hadippa! failed to click. Karan Johar’s Kurbaan, My Name Is Khan and Wake Up Sid didn’t do the business which his earlier films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai etc. did. Rakesh Roshan’s Kites, which Reliance Big Pictures reportedly bought for Rs. 110 crore (including the expenditure on promotion and prints), has also bombed.
So what does all this mean? That the kismat of Yash Chopra, Roshan and Johar are inter-linked? That their best comes out when Roshan and Johar have business dealings with Chopra? Interestingly, both, Rakesh Roshan and Karan Johar, have been making handsome under-production profits by selling their films to corporates, but at the box-office, their recent films don’t seem to have the magic of their earlier films.
