Prateek Tanmay
4 min readMumbaiJun 2, 2026 08:20 AM IST
Days after Varun Dhawan confessed the failure of Abhishek Varman’s 2019 period epic Kalank “shook” him and left his father and veteran filmmaker David Dhawan “disappointed”, Madhuri Dixit has also opened up on the film’s fate, in an exclusive interview with SCREEN. She played Varun’s mother Bahaar Begum in the film, stepping in for Sridevi, who passed away in 2018 months before the film went on floors.
Madhuri Dixit on Kalank
“You do your best, and put it out there. And then whatever happens, happens. You can’t really control that,” Madhuri tells SCREEN. “I’m sure there are a lot of people who’ve seen it. But by and large, there are other factors why a film doesn’t do well. So, we basically leave it at that. I’ve done my best, and at some point, somebody will watch it,” adds the actor.
Varun Dhawan on Kalank
A couple of weeks ago, during a chat with his father at the launch of PVR INOX’s David Dhawan Film Festival, Varun recalled how the setback, which was also his career’s first flop, affected him very deeply. “When I had my first flop, it shook me up very badly. Until then, there was a streak of success. I never understood it because I had worked very hard on that film. It was the hardest we had worked as a team, so we didn’t understand why it didn’t work,” he said.
David Dhawan also weighed in on the failure of Kalank. “The film I got disappointed with was a very big one, I think Karan (Johar, producer) must have sold his last shirt also for it, it was Kalank. I also asked Sanjay Dutt if he did the film just because Madhuri Dixit was in it. Sanjay was very upset about doing that film,” claimed David.
Varun Dhawan in Kalank.
Karan Johar on Kalank
After Kalank bombed at the box office in 2019, producer Karan Johar took full responsibility for its failure. ““I am knowledgeable about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to a film, so if a film hasn’t done well it is my responsibility as well as blame. I failed Kalank because I could not be the right governing force,” he told DNA back then.
The filmmaker added that he didn’t have “a single breakdown” after the film’s failure because he analyzed it very objectively. He considers it “a success that has taught me so much”. Karan confessed that he was too attached to the source material for him to be objective as a producer. “The material was there with me for 15 long years, and the film was very close to my heart. Perhaps that is why it lost a certain objectivity,” he said.
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Kalank was conceived by Karan and his late father Yash Johar back in 2004. In fact, the initial cast was rumoured to be Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, Rani Mukerji, and Ajay Devgn. But after Yash Johar’s demise, Karan thought he was too attached to direct the film. When the project got revived in 2018, 2 States director Abhishek Varman took over. The film also starred Alia Bhatt, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sonakshi Sinha, Kiara Advani, and Kunal Kemmu among others.
