Somen Mishra: Dharma's Creative Head on 'Homebound' Oscar Race, Box-Office and Why Trolls Don't Bother Him

Everyone in Mumbai's film circles has a Somen Mishra story. Some rage-tweet it, some vent it out anonymously through a blog post, some pour that into their screenplays, some hold his rise as a roadmap to how an outsider broke in. The joke is that everyone knows Mishra—and he knows everything. After a roller-coaster year, which peaked with him landing Karan Johar's Dharma Productions unprecedented glory with Homebound and Dhadak 2, Mishra is a relaxed creative.

"I think this is the peak of my career in terms of love and respect," Mishra says, reflecting on India's Oscar submission Homebound and Shazia Iqbal's Dhadak 2, the two knockout films that he spearheaded as a producer and Dharma's Creative Development Head.

From the studio perspective, it's a given that some titles will break through, some will fall apart—Nadaaniyan, Do You Wanna Partner and Sarzameen, all with Mishra's name attached, also released this year—but this "unanimous love," he says, was not always forthcoming. "I feel I have ticked all the boxes."

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Mishra talks about his journey—a decade after he moved from journalism and joined Junglee Pictures, commissioning titles like Talvar, Badhaai Ho and Raazi—what the year means for Dharma Productions, the CBFC battles, the box-office talk, the trolling, and the glory.

Edited excerpts from a conversation:

If my mother was reading this article, how would you describe your job profile to her?

Even my parents don't understand that because the perception is that a producer will invest money! But the creative development job is simply putting together a film, for which you need four things: the script, cast, director, and money. Out of the four things, money is not my headache, but the other three are. The easiest analogy is I'm handling someone else's farm. Karan Johar owns the farm. My job is to pick the right seed.

Now the seed will take manure, water, and sunlight for a few years. Then you will see if you get the flowers or the fruits. It might also not grow at all. So you must have the acumen to pick the right seeds. Get the right people, the director and the script.

Last year, during this time, you were nursing the heartbreak of Jigra. Now, you are in the middle of your Oscar campaign. What does the 180-degree turn tell you about the industry?

Someone had told me how the smallest of the films can make the loudest noise, and the biggest movies can sink without a trace. Karan is always in a zen mode during hits or flops. The idea is to get your learning, but move on to the next. If Jigra had landed, a lot of things would have changed, but that's OK.

Dhadak 2 and Homebound dominated online chatter. With the former, many were sceptical about the anti-caste politics....

There was someone on X who had bashed the first announcement of Dhadak 2, but then he saw the film and said it was better than the original. See, what I tell all directors when they work with Dharma is that the image comes before the work, so they will get a lot of unwarranted attention. The instinct is to always punch down the big guys—that's how it works and that's what even I used to do from the other side.

Then, of course, your film releases and does all the talking. But that apprehension comes with everything we do. If there is any director who is considered 'non Dharma' and works with us, suddenly people will be like, 'Arey, usko barbaad kar diya.'

It happened with Homebound, where some people initially said it was going to be a Dharma film, not a Neeraj Ghaywan film. But Karan doesn't get into anything. Once the script is locked, he doesn't come on set.

But making politically charged films such as these two would come at a cost, right? Both Homebound and Dhadak 2 had a long battle with the CBFC. Did you get sleepless nights?

The censor battle wasn't big at all. If you pick any film, it will have censor cuts. The board gauges the intention of the filmmakers. I anticipated it could get bigger!

But Dhadak 2 had a long, drawn-out battle...

The time it took was long because it went to the revising committee and there was some back and forth, but they also always trust the filmmakers. If you see both the films, that (battle with CBFC) hasn't impacted the final output. People were saying, 'Oh, we won't watch Homebound because now it is a toothless film.' But I'd say, please watch the film to see what we have managed to do. If the films didn't have the same impact, I would have had sleepless nights. But they landed strongly. The only thing with Homebound was that, because of the Oscar submission, we had little time to promote it.

Even with Dhadak 2, we earlier had a solo release, but then Son of Sardaar 2 got pushed and released with us and the Saiyaara wave was ongoing. So the release dates went topsy-turvy. If Homebound had a clearer window, instead of netting ₹20 to 25 lakhs, the business per day would have been double.

How sharp is the sword of box-office success hanging over you for these films?

We are all answerable. But I'd like to state that 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, 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.

Because the budgets are correct?

More than that, it is the revenue that we get. 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.

Dhadak 2 was still in a slightly more mainstream space because we are doing the romance and the songs. So we knew that if it had a decent number, we were home. With Homebound, box-office was never the intention because the treatment was not of the traditional mainstream space. Our issue was to see how we can get it to Cannes or Toronto. If the film hadn't done the global festival rounds, that would have been a problem. If you are not working for box office but are also not landing film festivals, then it's alarming.

During Dhadak 2, there was a chatter online that the film wasn't marketed enough, that it could have benefited from a better push, and that it released on 1,000 screens...

Marketing is not something I look into actively, but we don't get affected by online chatter. I don't think any producer in this town would want to sabotage his film in any way. The strategies might not land... But limited releases work differently. Increasing the shows is a matter of pushing the buttons but decreasing makes you look bad. It is better to have two shows packed to 80 per cent occupancy than 20 shows packed to 10 per cent. For some films, we do follow this strategy.

My ROI (return on investment) on Homebound is higher than any film I have done in terms of chatter, respect, festivals and Martin Scorsese coming on board. Look at the payoff!

Will you do another Dhadak 2, Homebound or Jigra in the future? What does the slate look like?

At Dharma, I was co-producer till Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani and I was the producer on these three. Some things will remain unchanged, and we want to do the big-budget theatrical experiences. Those big ideas will keep coming in mainstream space and the Jigra, Homebound and Dhadak 2 will also keep coming in between. These three films happened because they had strong, distinct directorial voices in Vasan Bala, Shazia Iqbal and Neeraj Ghaywan. For instance, at present, we have Reema Maya, who is doing SOTY 3 for us, and she is such a fascinating, novel voice, which is what we are looking for.

You have mentioned that nothing affects you, but what about anonymous blog posts, of which you have been a subject?

(laughs) No yaar. The first time I read it, I was amazed. It is not just the blog, but some X handles are obsessively tracking all my films, and even if it's not my film, they will write about me. But this doesn't affect me at all, as it is the nature of the business. Also, when you crack who is writing the anonymous posts—and by now the whole of Versova knows—it really doesn't matter.

But you have also been on the other side in your Twitter era....

I have done these things, so I know it is just for fun. People online think I am arrogant, but anybody who has met me doesn't feel like that and I have been told that. More than anything, stupidity annoys me, but I don't engage anymore. I am old and there is too much to do. Earlier, I would pick fights every day and have fun. But now there is no time to fight!