'Ghost Stories' was Karan Johar's idea, he panicked when everyone agreed

I got very scared with the idea of making a scary film, he said

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Horror anthology Ghost Stories released on Netflix on January 1. Filmmakers Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap and Dibaker Banerjee reunited for this project after the success of another anthology—Lust Stories—that streamed on Netflix last year.

The initial idea for Ghost Stories was floated by Karan Johar himself. Speaking to THE WEEK, Karan said earlier: “We were at the screening of Lust Stories and chatting when I suggested it. That’s how it all happened.”

“We loved it and Karan spent the next two weeks trying to dissuade us from doing it,” Dibakar added in jest. “He panicked when everybody agreed to it. He kind of tried to backtrack,” Zoya said.

“Yeah. I got very scared with the idea of making a scary film because I didn’t have the… I may still not have been able to [do justice to it]. But I did what I did. I put myself deep into the ocean and probably learnt how to swim to some shore,” Karan said.

Director Zoya Akhtar said she was clear about one thing when she started working on Ghost Stories: she wouldn't rely on conventional horror tropes and would instead use the genre to chronicle fundamental fears that haunt people.

-with PTI inputs