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Zero has had a roller coaster beginning to its box office journey. The first weekend performance did not pan out as expected despite good buzz and extensive promotions. On its first weekday, the Shah Rukh Khan starrer remained steady. However, there is chance that the film will pick up on Christmas. The film collected a total of Rs 59.07 crore in its first weekend. After earning Rs 20.14 crore on its first day, Zero witnessed a dip in its collection due to negative reviews. However, it was back on track on Sunday with a Rs 20.71 crore collection. The Anushka Sharma starrer received mixed reviews. The Indian Express critic Shubhra Gupta wrote, “Challenged people in challenging circumstances trying to find intimacy is a great premise, especially if there is awareness of how ‘out- of- the- norm’ people are forced to deal with so-called normal people. And Zero could have done it thrice over, because Aafia (Sharma), one of its female characters, is a wheelchair-bound NASA scientist with cerebral palsy. The other is a reigning film star called Babita (Kaif) who shows her hurt, vulnerable side, in a couple of unvarnished moments. But Zero fails spectacularly at giving us anything we can believe in, and we go from start to finish, with disbelief growing with each passing frame.” Zero also stars Katrina Kaif. Talking to indianexpress.com about the film’s director Aanand L Rai, the actor had said, “Aanand L Rai is one of the few directors, I have seen all the films of. I have been in touch with him since his first movie. His most unique trait is that he is in touch with pan-India audience. He is not a metro-centric filmmaker. He has a very strong emotional core in all his films and his women characters are very strong. They are never incidental. They are never one dimensional.” As for her co-star Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina remarked SRK is conscious of the fact that women in his films get their due, which reflects in the kind of characters that female actors play in his projects.