Shah Rukh Khan, who received the prestigious Pardo Alla Carriera Award at the Locarno Film Festival on August 10, revealed he backed out of a film at the eleventh hour post Zero box office debacle in an interview with Variety. Shah Rukh Khan made a blockbuster comeback last year with three back-to-back films after a four-year hiatus post Zero. Recalling the phase when he "didn't feel like working", Shah Rukh Khan said, "I called the producer and I said to him that I don't want to work for a year. He said, 'It's not possible. You don't sit without working for even a minute. So you don't like the film, say no, don't say you're not working for a year'. And a year and a half later, he did call and he said, 'I was really surprised you actually are not working'. So I just didn't want to work. I just didn't want to act. I didn't feel like acting. Because for me, acting is genuinely very, very organic."
Shah Rukh Khan added, "I've always maintained that the day I don't feel like getting up in the morning and conquering the shoot, I don't want to work. It wasn't the failure of the films, to be honest. I was doing a film in January, and this (Zero release) was in December. Very unprofessional of me. I just woke up and I said, 'I don't want to go and shoot this film." For context, Zero was directed by Anand L Rai and Shah Rukh Khan, Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif headlined the film. The film was a box office failure which gave Shah Rukh Khan a shock.
Shah Rukh Khan didn't take the name of the film he backed out last minute. However, the film he referred to was reportedly Saare Jahan Se Achha, the biopic of Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian man to enter space. It was being directed by Mahesh Mathai and produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur's banner Roy Kapur Films.
At the Locarno Film Festival, Shah Rukh Khan confirmed that his next film is King, directed by Sujoy Ghosh. He said, "I finished Jawan and Dunki last year. Now, there's a certain kind of film I want to do. Maybe its more age centric and its something I have been trying for over 7 years. One day, I mentioned it to Sujoy Ghosh in my office. He said, 'sir, I have a subject.'"
Shah Rukh Khan added, "It's very simple. I have a desire to do a genre-could be comedy, courtroom drama, or social. I just put it out in the air, I meet a couple of people, some of them have a subject, I hear it, I spend time with them and we just go ahead and make the film."
