Where are the titles, asks Karan Johan

Karan Johar has been to hell and back. All this because, till recently, he could not find an appropriate title for his upcoming film, a Kajol-Arjun Rampal starrer. Shudders Karan, “It was like an instant replay of the trauma I had gone through to get a title for Kurbaan. Now it has come to a stage where the title dictates what film we will make. If someone comes to me with an idea for my film, my first question is, ‘What would we call it?’ It’s a nightmare.” Karan calls fishing for a title a constant migraine, a nagging headache for his entire team.  The latest example being the remake of the Hollywood film, Stepmom, which has finally been christened We Are Family. Explaining why he settled for a English title, Karan says, “Because we ran through our options and had no better choice. We originally wanted a Hindi title since our target audience for this tear-jerker is the women folk. But we couldn’t get any suitable title.” He now plans to create a bank of Hindi titles and hold on to every title. “Hold on to what you’ve got, titles included, because you never know when you will need it,” he advises. Karan blames television soaps for the bankruptcy of film titles.

“All the Hindi titles have dried up. They’ve either been used up by other producers, or they’ve gone to television. Even Kabhie Alvida Na Kehna was registered with Aruna Irani. She sweetly gave it to me. We’ve no choice but to give English-language titles to our films now,” he moans. Karan reveals that he originally wanted to title the Stepmom remake as Badalte Rishte. “There was an old Jeetendra-Reena Roy-Rishi Kapoor film by that title. But I got to know that the title Badalte Rishte had also already gone on television,” he says adding,  “Being a Hindi production house, I am not happy going with English titles like Wake Up Sid, My Name Is Khan and I Hate Luv Storys for our films. Thank God my father registered Dostana and Agneepath. At least we don’t have to worry about titles for two of our forthcoming productions.”