John started his career as an assistant director on the epic movie
Gandhi, directed by Sir
Richard Attenborough. Also working on
Gandhi was
Govind Nihlani, who Matthan would later assist for several films before shifting to directing advertisements. In the early 1990s, Matthan started his own production company in
Mahalaxmi,
Mumbai called Cinematt Pictures Pvt Ltd. The company, which also involved Matthan's brother George, released its first feature film entitled
Sarfarosh in 1999. Matthan began work on
Sarfarosh in 1992. Seven years were spent on the research, pre-production, and production of the film until it was finally released to both critical and commercial success. The reviewer for
Filmfare rated the film four stars out of five and wrote about Matthan, "Although this is his first film, director John Mathew Matthan draws perfectly crafted outputs from his entire cast." After
Sarfarosh, Matthan started working on a script which involved the issue of
brain drain. However, after the tragedy of
9/11, the script lost its pertinence and Matthan moved on to another idea that germinated in the form of
Shikhar (2005). In 2007, Matthan began work on his next film titled
A New Love Ishtory. Written by
Vipul K Rawal and starring
Himesh Reshammiya and
Niharika Singh, the film was completed in 2009 but its release delayed to 29 September 2013 due to a falling out between
Himesh Reshammiya and his record label
T-Series. ==Filmography==