The opening weekend headlines were fractured. Some trade trackers generously called its hold “decent for a rom-com,” while others bluntly reported that it was losing out to regional competitors and lacked the word-of-mouth spark that once guaranteed Dharma a hit. The truth landed somewhere in the middle: the film wasn’t a disaster, but it wasn’t a clean hit either.
For a studio that once stood for market certainty, a “meh” result is damning. Sunny Sanskari is not an outlier — it’s another data point in Dharma’s growing pattern of underperformance.
A String of Flops: How Dharma Production Lost Its Touch
The cracks didn’t start here. Since 2022, Dharma’s theatrical record has looked like a graveyard of ambitious projects that simply didn’t connect.
Liger (2022) was marketed as a pan-India spectacle but turned into one of the biggest box-office disasters of the decade. Trade reports and India Today called it an outright commercial failure.
Selfiee (2023), despite Akshay Kumar’s presence, sank without a trace — a bomb by any measure.
Yodha (2024) opened with fanfare but collapsed quickly; even Wikipedia bluntly calls it a commercial failure.
Jigra (2024), starring Alia Bhatt, earned critical discussion but underperformed theatrically and found whatever afterlife it had only on OTT.
Dhadak 2 (2025) and Kesari Chapter 2 (2025) — both high-profile sequels — were dismissed by trade columns as underwhelming and costly misfires.
Only two films broke the streak in headline terms. Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva (2022) delivered massive global grosses but raised more questions than answers about actual profitability. And Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) provided a momentary theatrical breather, though not on the scale that a Dharma banner once guaranteed.
The rest? Streaming premieres like Shershaah (2021), Gehraiyaan (2022), and Govinda Naam Mera (2022), which may have generated buzz but offered no transparent box-office validation.
Put simply: the balance sheet of Dharma’s last few years shows a handful of bright sparks buried under a heap of failed experiments.
The Financial Truth: High Gross ≠ Health
The numbers tell a story that marketing can’t spin. According to reports in The Economic Times, Dharma’s revenue spiked to over ₹1,000 crore in FY23, but net profit shrank to barely ₹10–11 crore. By FY24, profits had collapsed further, down to just a few lakhs.
That’s not a hit machine; that’s a company running on fumes.
This financial fragility explains the ₹1,000 crore investment from Adar Poonawalla, who bought 50% of the company. Reuters and other business outlets didn’t sugarcoat it: this was a capital infusion to stabilize a studio struggling with uneven returns.
The math is clear: ballooning budgets and heavy marketing spends are eroding margins. Dharma’s films may generate flashy gross numbers, but profitability is shrinking — a dangerous gap between glamour and ground reality.
The OTT Black Box: Lifeline or Mirage?
OTT has been Dharma’s safety net. Shershaah became one of Prime Video’s most-watched Indian titles. Platforms declared it a roaring success, and the film indeed struck a cultural chord.
But streaming is also a black box. Platforms don’t disclose licensing fees or transparent viewership monetisation. When Dharma pushes films like Gehraiyaan or Govinda Naam Mera directly to OTT, the label of “success” rests entirely on PR-friendly phrases like “most-watched” or “top 10.”
That may protect the brand’s image, but it denies the industry and audience a clear picture of actual financial health. OTT can delay a reckoning, but it cannot mask a declining theatrical batting average forever.
What the Press and Analysts Are Observing
The warnings about Dharma’s recent track record go far beyond industry gossip. Multiple mainstream trade and business publications have highlighted a recurring pattern: several high-profile releases in recent years underperformed at the box office, with headline grosses often failing to translate into sustainable profits. Analysts have also noted collapsing margins and questioned whether capital infusions were a sign of strategic strength or a response to uneven returns.
Across the coverage, terms like “string of flops” and “nosedive” frequently appear, reflecting a consistent assessment of the studio’s underperformance. These observations come from credible reporting and industry analysis, not fan commentary or promotional materials — painting a clear picture of a once-dominant studio struggling to convert its glamour into reliable hits.
Why Dharma Production Keeps Stumbling
The reasons for Dharma’s slump aren’t a mystery. They’ve been hiding in plain sight.
Over-reliance on star packaging: Films like Liger and Selfiee proved that marquee names cannot rescue weak scripts. The reliance on glossy casting has backfired.
Ballooning budgets, shaky ROI: Brahmāstra showed that headline grosses can hide a profit problem. High spending erodes sustainability.
Pandemic-era drift: Leaning too heavily on OTT premieres cushioned failures but also blurred theatrical credibility.
Formula fatigue: Upcoming projects suggest the same reliance on romance dramas and familiar casting. Critics in Hindustan Times have flagged the repetition and lack of innovation in Dharma’s slates.
In short: the problem is structural, not circumstantial.
The Road Ahead: A Dim Pipeline
If the future slate is supposed to inspire confidence, it doesn’t.
Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri, directed by Sameer Vidwans and starring Kartik Aaryan and Ananya Panday, is being marketed as another glossy rom-com. The formula looks painfully familiar.
Chand Mera Dil, directed by Vivek Soni with Ananya Panday and Lakshya, promises another youth-centric romance that industry observers already consider predictable.
Neither title suggests risk-taking or originality. Both seem like extensions of the very formula that has failed Dharma repeatedly. For a studio desperate for a clean hit, this is hardly reassuring.
The Rot Is Evident: Lessons from Dharma Production’s Missteps
Dharma Productions’ recent track record shows clear structural issues.
Gross numbers can be misleading. Public filings reveal revenue spikes that do not translate into sustainable profits, showing a disconnect between box-office headline figures and actual financial health.
Budget inflation has not guaranteed hits. Oversized productions like Brahmāstra generated massive grosses but came under scrutiny for low margins, highlighting the risk of prioritising spectacle over profitability.
OTT reliance masks theatrical underperformance. While streaming successes such as Shershaah provide headline value, they obscure the real box-office performance of many recent releases.
Creative and formulaic fatigue. Repeated reliance on glossy star vehicles and predictable rom-coms has contributed to declining audience engagement, as seen with Sunny Sanskari, Tu Meri Main Tera…, and Chand Mera Dil.
This evidence paints a picture of a studio that is financially stressed, creatively conservative, and increasingly reliant on PR and streaming to sustain its image — rather than genuine theatrical hits.
Verdict: Glamour Isn’t Enough
Dharma Productions is not dead. It still has capital, stars, and one of Bollywood’s most powerful PR machines. But the brand promise that a Dharma film equals a clean theatrical hit has been broken.
The failure of Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari is not just another blip. It’s a red flag that confirms what trade, press, and financial filings have already shown: too many flops, shrinking margins, and a reliance on gloss over grit.
If Dharma continues down this path, the studio risks being remembered not for the great films it once made, but for an era where it stopped listening to audiences and started mistaking packaging for success.
The glamour is still there. The hits are not.
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