What can explain it? He has tried experimenting. He has tried the out- and-out commercial. He has worked with directors who have made critically acclaimed movies. He has worked with directors who have a record of movies that break box-office records. None of it has borne results over the past four years. One factor is the burden of superstardom itself. Movies that would get a certificate of a decent performance by medium-rung stars are poor showing when it comes to a Khan. Superstars are judged by the standards that other superstars set and Zero is about Rs 100 crore short, no matter what the final tally will be. Also, he alone among the three Khans seems confused about the territory he wants to conquer. Salman has no pretensions to movies that will be remembered a century later. Aamir wants to always make memorable films, even if their commercial appeal is not visible. Shah Rukh wants both worlds and ends up with neither, just shallow self-indulgent characters, like in his movies Fan and Zero.
And possibly as a consequence of his ambivalent ambition, he is now not seen with those directors who understand him best and gave him his biggest hits, like Karan Johar and Farah Khan. Shah Rukh Khan's own instinct for what makes movies work is rusty. Zero is about a dwarf who makes it to Mars. After its debacle, which actor would want to leave planet Earth in his next movie? But Saare Jahaan Se Achha, his next release, is a biopic of Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian who made it to space.
Real Estate
57