The curse of Karan Johar: How Bollywood’s ‘star maker’ keeps failing newcomers

A LOT has been said about Karan Johar being a brilliant mastermind when it comes to launching new talent, including children of famous film stars.

While he deserves some credit for working with newcomers, Johar’s track record with aspiring actors is poor, and for many, it has turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing. A strong first film typically sets up a debutant for a solid career in cinema, but when it fails, the individual is often left swimming against the tide. This is exactly what has happened with Ibrahim Ali Khan, whose recently released disastrous debut movie Nadaaniyan has been a major setback.

Despite having dashing looks and insider connections, the son of movie stars Amrita Singh and Saif Ali Khan has had a horrific start with a truly dreadful film – one that is un intentionally funny, poorly acted, and cringeworthy. Though protected from the shame of low box-office collections by a direct-to streaming re lease on Netflix, Ibrahim still couldn’t escape scathing reviews and heavy trolling on social media.

As the producer and an experienced industry power-player, Johar must take much of the blame for failing to spot the obvious mistakes in the awful film, which included recycling old story tropes and making the lead cast appear amateurish.

A similar scenario unfolded when Ananya Panday and Tara Sutaria were launched in Johar’s spiritual sequel Student of the Year 2, which was laughable and seemed to take audiences for granted.

Before that, Johar introduced the late superstar Sridevi’s daughter Janhvi Kapoor in the disappointing 2018 drama Dhadak.

Seven years later, she is still struggling to establish herself, despite repeated opportunities.

Ibrahim Ali Khan in 'Nadaaniyan'

Johar’s biggest misfire was the 2022 disaster Liger. A movie that was supposed to launch Telugu superstar Vijay Deverakonda into Bollywood with a bang, but was so shockingly bad and such a huge box-office disaster that it likely destroyed any chances he had of making it in Hindi cinema. Deverakonda hasn’t acted in a Bollywood film since and likely never will. It was also announced in 2022 that actor Sanjay Kapoor’s daughter, Shanaya Kapoor, would be launched by Johar in Bedhadak, but that project was qui etly shelved, reportedly leaving the young starlet traumatised.

Shanaya is now hoping to get her career back on track with her forthcoming film Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan opposite Vikrant Massey, but any hype surrounding her has dissipated, and it looks set to flop.

More recently, television actor Lakshya got his big film break in Johar’s action movie Kill, which generated a lot of hype globally, but ultimately didn’t perform at the box office as expected. The disturbingly extreme violence in the film overshadowed everything else, including its lead star.

Fans of Johar will point to his successful launch of Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, and Sidharth Malhotra in 2012’s Student of the Year. In reality, only Alia Bhatt has be come a big star, while Dhawan and Malhotra’s careers have largely been defined by failures. Had Ibrahim Ali Khan taken a closer look at Johar’s history of failed at tempts to launch new talent, he might have chosen a different path instead of agreeing to be part of a career-killing movie dumped directly onto a streaming platform.