This week in Bollywood: Elon Musk 'hearts' Ranveer Singh; the 'fiasco' that is SRK-starrer Zero

Zero, also starring Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma in lead roles, the film has created a huge pre-release buzz. It is also eyeing to break opening day records of previous year-end releases. The highest has been by Aamir Khan-starrer Dhoom 3, which made Rs 36 crore. Image: @Zero21Dec ‏

It was just another week for Bollywood with films making money at the box office, gossip and more wedding pictures crashing the internet. But that is not it. While the week gone by was pretty regular, the weekend was action packed for Bollywood.

To start with the ‘Thank God It's Friday’ moment for Bollywood, billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted the link to the song Deewani Mastani from Ranveer-Deepika starrer 2015 film Bajirao Mastani and also shared a GIF of Ranveer Singh from the song Malhari. The tweet had a couple of hearts accompanying the link and GIF. Bollywood is sure going places.

But that’s not why the weekend has been particularly interesting. This Friday, Aanand L Rai’s Zero hit the theatres — the film where Shahrukh Khan plays a dwarf and romances Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma. Much to the disappointment of the entire film fraternity and King Khan's fans who waited for the release with baited breath, the film failed to create much impact.

Film trade analyst Taran Adarsh, who is generally generous with stars and ratings to appreciate the sheer hard work that goes into making a film, took to social media to give the film one and half stars. His one-word review of the film was ‘FIASCO’.

He further said, “Expected so much from this collaboration of SRK and director Aanand L Rai. Sadly, the flawed writing — especially the second hour — takes the film downhill. It is an epic disappointment.”

Now coming to box office collections, produced on a budget of Rs 200 crore, the film made Rs 20 crore on its opening day. However, recent bloopers like Thugs of Hindostan have proved how good openings in terms of numbers do not guarantee a bright future for the film. Thugs of Hindostan had made Rs 50 crore on its opening, but still failed to find a wide audience. The day one numbers are often reflective of the curiosity the film had created before release and fizzles out when there is negative feedback from analysts, critiques and, most importantly, the audience.

However, there has also been some good news for the audience. They can now look forward to watching more movies at theatres and more often at that. Why? Because the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on Saturday cut rates on movie tickets. As a result, movie tickets upto Rs 100, which had a GST of 18 percent, has been brought down to 12 percent and those above Rs 100 (previously under 28 percent slab) will now be 18 percent.