By Subhash K Jha

Cute may not be the by-word at the moment, what with even James Bond getting deep and tragic on us.. But Karan Johar certainly believes in going against expectations. After a probing treatise on marriage Karan is all set to go into an unexplored territory.

Says the director who's been traveling on lecture tours, "It's my production house's first animation film, and I'm naturally very excited about going into a new territory. It's going to be based on a novel concept, a complete feature film like any Dharma Production with songs, emotions... you name it.

Suresh Nair is writing the animation film for me. I hope to get the right technical team in place early next year. I believe my animation film will get the formula right for our audience.

What I'll be doing is to combine an alien concept (animation films are largely seen as Hollywood territory) with a concept that's familiar to our audience."

Karan will also direct his fourth feature film. "I want to start the project by the end of next year. It's an idea that grabbed me one morning as I read the newspaper, and it stayed with me. I've the story, and I'll be working on it.

I'm going to start writing my screenplay as soon as I return to Mumbai. All I can say at the moment is, it's a territory I've never explored. It's an idea I wake up to every morning. And that hasn't happened to me in a while."

In addition, Karan is going to be producing his long-standing assistant Tarun Mansukhani's film which rolls in June. "It's a romantic comedy with the fun element being predominant.. Tarun has been with me for the last decade. And yes, it will have lots of stars. Isn't that a prerequisite for all Dharma productions?"

And what about Karan's assistant Soham Shah who was working on a project for Karan's production house and decided to leave overnight?

Karan responds with tight-lipped candour. "Soham is a master craftsman, a master story-teller and a great human-being. No matter who his producer now I hope his film will meet with great success."

Beyond this Karan will say no more.