When Karan Johar said he regrets how Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna turned out, admitted he got swayed by stars

Karan Johar's Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna celebrated its 15th anniversary on Wednesday. The film, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukerji, Preity Zinta and Amitabh Bachchan, told the stories of two married couples.

At a press event in 2016, Karan Johar said that he got swayed from the 'core content' of the story when stars came on board, and he got distracted by upholding their onscreen images.

He said, "I will always regret some things... I think Kabhi Alvida has some of my favourite moments, personally, as a filmmaker. I regret... I think it's a flawed film. And I think the mistakes in that film are entirely mine. I think I tried to do two things; I tried to do something fresh, and interesting, and ground-breaking, but halfway through I also got scared. So just like my sun sign, which is Gemini, I became two people. And I think I should've just been one person, with one solid conviction."

Karan added, "The root of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna was a relationship-based film; it was an intimate film about two couples. The other thing is that I'd written the characters very differently and then stars stepped in, and I started adhering to star imagery and persona, over and above core content. Like if you read the screenplay of Kabhi Alvida, it's infinitely superior to the film. I think I let many moments of that film down. Some parts were over-cast, some parts were opulent for no reason. It took away the intimacy and paved the way for the mainstream. The result is that it has a neither here nor there feeling. While some scenes in the film are very strong, and impactful, others are perhaps catering, which they shouldn't have."

Karan's last film as a feature film director was Ae Dil Hai Mushkil in 2016, but he recently announced that he'd be making a comeback with Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani, starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt.

On Wednesday, Karan marked the film's 15th anniversary with a message on social media, in which he wrote, "A film that will always remain extremely special to me. Tough to fathom that it's been 15 years to all the memories we made on set, while creating the music and so much more!! Here's to the kind of love that's strong enough to never say alvida to!!"