Karan Johar On Expensive Oscar Campaign For Homebound: It's A Bottomless Pit

Neeraj Ghaywan's Homebound, India's official entry for the 98th Academy Awards (Oscars 2026), made it to the shortlist for the Best International Feature Film category. Now, everyone is waiting with bated breath for the final nomination list. Homebound is produced by Karan Johar, Adar Poonawalla, Apoorva Mehta, and Somen Mishra, with Marijke deSouza and Melita Toscan Du Plantier as co-producers. Legendary director Martin Scorsese served as the executive producer. The acclaimed film starred Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa and Janhvi Kapoor in key roles.

In a podcast, Karan Johar has opened up about the expensive Oscar campaign for Homebound, calling it a “bottomless pit.” He called it a “passion project” and not a “money-making exercise.”

Karan Johar on Homebound's Oscar campaign

During the podcast on PeepingMoon and Telly MEK, Karan revealed that his business partner, Adar Poonawalla, didn't care about money and spent lavishly launching the Oscar campaign for the Homebound.

“We were doing Homebound. I told him that doing an Oscar campaign will cost money and sometimes it is a bottomless pit. Because you don’t know what the end result will be, and whether you will even make it to the shortlist of 15 and then 5. It is an uphill task,” Karan said

“You have to employ publicists and travel and make noise and do media abroad and screenings abroad. But Adar said 'Karan, this is a great opportunity and a great film, let’s do everything in our capacity',” he added.

Karan also said that Adar didn't think of profit or loss and chose passion over monetary benefit. “It is not a money-making exercise for us. It is about credibility. We will do other films for survival, but Homebound was always a passion project. There is no monetary game in that film,” the 53-year-old producer said further.