Does Karan Johar Have a Personal Vendetta Against Saif's Kids?
I don’t know why, but it really seems like Karan Johar has some personal enmity with Saif Ali Khan’s kids. Let’s talk about Sara first.
From the very beginning, KJo seemed to sideline Sara. Initially, she was supposed to debut with Simmba, but she chose Kedarnath instead—which was actually a smart move. But apparently, this upset KJo, and as a result, he didn’t offer her any movies early on. Meanwhile, he kept giving projects to Janhvi Kapoor and later Ananya Panday. In fact, Janhvi ended up getting the most films from him.
Fast forward to 2022—after the infamous Koffee with Karan fiasco—KJo finally announced that Sara would be doing two movies with Dharma. One of them was already announced (Ae Watan Mere Watan), while the second one remained a mystery. Sara’s fans were thrilled because this was her first Dharma project after so long, and on top of that, it was a patriotic biopic. Some even compared it to Raazi.
But here’s where things went downhill.
The director of Ae Watan Mere Watan was Kannan Iyer, whose last proper film (Ek Thi Daayan) had released ten years ago. The film wasn’t even a full-fledged Dharma movie—it was produced by Dharmatic Entertainment, Dharma’s digital wing, and released as an Amazon Prime original.
Before the movie’s release, there were reports that Sara was supposed to star in another Dharma film—a spy thriller opposite Ayushmann Khurrana. But then Ae Watan came out, and… well, it was a disaster.
- Sara’s performance was terrible. (And let’s be real, if an actor’s performance is bad, the director is also to blame.)
- The script was a mess. The screenplay was even worse. What was the writer even thinking?
- The movie didn’t go viral, nor did the songs.
The film had so much potential, but it was completely wasted. And while Sara’s performance was criticized, the bigger issue was the poor direction and writing. But wasn’t KJo, as the producer, supposed to oversee which movie goes to which director? Who in their right mind would hand over a high-potential project to a director who hadn’t made a film in a decade?
If someone like Shoojit Sircar had directed it, Ae Watan Mere Watan might have been in the running for a National Award. So, was this a deliberate attempt by KJo to sabotage Sara?
Now, coming back to the spy thriller with Ayushmann—there’s literally no news about it anymore. In December 2024, Guneet Monga (who’s co-producing the film with Dharma) said there would be an announcement in January 2025. But it’s March now, and there’s been complete silence. It’s starting to feel like the movie doesn’t even exist. If it does release, it’ll probably be dumped on OTT like Nadaaniyan was.
A similar thing happened with Ibrahim. Nadaaniyan was an absolute disaster. Social media—Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram—has been trolling the movie non-stop. The way people are going on about it, you’d think trashing the film is going to solve all of the country’s problems—corrupt politicians will be arrested, crime will disappear, India will become a superpower, the education system will be fixed, and there will be no more corruption.
Poor Ibrahim—his career ended before it even started. No one is supporting him except his sister, and even she is getting dragged into the Nadaaniyan debate. People are now using this as an excuse to bring up her acting skills again. But honestly, how is that her fault? Her brother debuted, not her!
Again, the real question is—was KJo blind enough to not see that giving a trash script to an even trashier director, and then dumping it on Netflix, would do more harm than good? What was he thinking?
This is why I feel like there’s some kind of personal enmity here. And honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if rival PR teams were fueling this trolling, making things even worse for Sara and Ibrahim. It genuinely feels like they’re being cornered, and no one is stepping up to help them.
But what I really don’t understand is—if they know that KJo is going to harm them, then why do they keep going back to him? They’ve seen how things played out before, so why repeat the same mistake?
I don’t know why, but it really seems like Karan Johar has some personal enmity with Saif Ali Khan’s kids. Let’s talk about Sara first.
From the very beginning, KJo seemed to sideline Sara. Initially, she was supposed to debut with Simmba, but she chose Kedarnath instead—which was actually a smart move. But apparently, this upset KJo, and as a result, he didn’t offer her any movies early on. Meanwhile, he kept giving projects to Janhvi Kapoor and later Ananya Panday. In fact, Janhvi ended up getting the most films from him.
Fast forward to 2022—after the infamous Koffee with Karan fiasco—KJo finally announced that Sara would be doing two movies with Dharma. One of them was already announced (Ae Watan Mere Watan), while the second one remained a mystery. Sara’s fans were thrilled because this was her first Dharma project after so long, and on top of that, it was a patriotic biopic. Some even compared it to Raazi.
But here’s where things went downhill.
The director of Ae Watan Mere Watan was Kannan Iyer, whose last proper film (Ek Thi Daayan) had released ten years ago. The film wasn’t even a full-fledged Dharma movie—it was produced by Dharmatic Entertainment, Dharma’s digital wing, and released as an Amazon Prime original.
Before the movie’s release, there were reports that Sara was supposed to star in another Dharma film—a spy thriller opposite Ayushmann Khurrana. But then Ae Watan came out, and… well, it was a disaster.
- Sara’s performance was terrible. (And let’s be real, if an actor’s performance is bad, the director is also to blame.)
- The script was a mess. The screenplay was even worse. What was the writer even thinking?
- The movie didn’t go viral, nor did the songs.
The film had so much potential, but it was completely wasted. And while Sara’s performance was criticized, the bigger issue was the poor direction and writing. But wasn’t KJo, as the producer, supposed to oversee which movie goes to which director? Who in their right mind would hand over a high-potential project to a director who hadn’t made a film in a decade?
If someone like Shoojit Sircar had directed it, Ae Watan Mere Watan might have been in the running for a National Award. So, was this a deliberate attempt by KJo to sabotage Sara?
Now, coming back to the spy thriller with Ayushmann—there’s literally no news about it anymore. In December 2024, Guneet Monga (who’s co-producing the film with Dharma) said there would be an announcement in January 2025. But it’s March now, and there’s been complete silence. It’s starting to feel like the movie doesn’t even exist. If it does release, it’ll probably be dumped on OTT like Nadaaniyan was.
A similar thing happened with Ibrahim. Nadaaniyan was an absolute disaster. Social media—Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram—has been trolling the movie non-stop. The way people are going on about it, you’d think trashing the film is going to solve all of the country’s problems—corrupt politicians will be arrested, crime will disappear, India will become a superpower, the education system will be fixed, and there will be no more corruption.
Poor Ibrahim—his career ended before it even started. No one is supporting him except his sister, and even she is getting dragged into the Nadaaniyan debate. People are now using this as an excuse to bring up her acting skills again. But honestly, how is that her fault? Her brother debuted, not her!
Again, the real question is—was KJo blind enough to not see that giving a trash script to an even trashier director, and then dumping it on Netflix, would do more harm than good? What was he thinking?
This is why I feel like there’s some kind of personal enmity here. And honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if rival PR teams were fueling this trolling, making things even worse for Sara and Ibrahim. It genuinely feels like they’re being cornered, and no one is stepping up to help them.
But what I really don’t understand is—if they know that KJo is going to harm them, then why do they keep going back to him? They’ve seen how things played out before, so why repeat the same mistake?