Hyderabad: Nearly seven years after Zero released in 2018 and failed at the box office, director Aanand L Rai has openly spoken about what went wrong. The Shah Rukh Khan starrer, which also featured Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif, was made on a grand scale but could not meet audience expectations.
“I Failed to Use Shah Rukh Khan’s Stardom”
In a recent interview with Galatta Plus, Aanand L Rai took full responsibility for the film’s failure. He admitted that he treated Shah Rukh Khan mainly as an actor and did not properly factor in his superstar image. According to the filmmaker, Shah Rukh came to the project with immense trust and love, but he later realised that a star of his stature carries an image that audiences expect to see on screen.
“The problem with Zero was that, that man..that superstar came to me with so much of love and me being me, I never understood that it’s not an actor director who was going to make a story. There was a superstar attached, his image is there, which I have to understand and get in the film. I was working with an actor, a big actor. I realised much later that there is an image that I had to take care of,” he said.
Despite the film’s poor performance, Aanand described working with Shah Rukh Khan as a rewarding experience. He shared that both of them enjoyed the journey, but felt that one of them should have paused and acknowledged that the project involved a superstar, not just an actor-director collaboration.
About Zero and Its Box Office Run
Zero followed the story of Bauua Singh, a man with dwarfism from Meerut, who finds himself torn between a scientist with cerebral palsy and a troubled movie star. Made on a budget of around Rs. 200 crore, the film collected only about Rs. 178 crore worldwide, making it a box office failure. After Zero, Shah Rukh Khan took a long break from acting.
What’s Next for Aanand L Rai
On the work front, Aanand L Rai recently directed Tere Ishk Mein, starring Dhanush and Kriti Sanon.
