This week reports claiming that Karan Johar is all set to direct a new film entitled Prem Kahani featuring Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh turned out to be as bogus as KRK’s artificial bravado.

I asked Karan about the truth behind these reports and he very categorically denied them.

A source close to Karan elaborated, “Karan is not looking at directing any project at the moment. His focus at the moment is on seeing the long-delayed Brahmastra to its completion. All his efforts are going into minimizing the production costs as Brahmastra has gone way over-budget.”

As for Prem Kahani, that’s the title of the Raj Khosla 1974 film featuring Rajesh Khanna and Mumtaz. Karan is big fan of Khosla’s cinema. He may have mentioned the film somewhere as being among his favourites. But he is certainly not making a film of that title.

So what is Karan Johar directing next? It will in all probability be his long-delayed costume drama Takht featuring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Alia Bhatt, Ranveer Singh among others.

Sources say the current financial situation being what it is, the original budget doesn’t work out. Karan is now looking at various options to go ahead with the project including the possibility of turning Takht into a web series.