Angry boys surrounded Shekhar Kapoor after Masoom flopped on day 1: They lost all their money, told me not to make ‘Article films’ | Bollywood News
5 min readNew DelhiFeb 9, 2026 11:49 AM IST
Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, known for iconic films like Masoom, Mr. India, and Bandit Queen, took to X on Monday to share how his directorial debut, Masoom, had a rocky start at the box office, making him think that his career is over, only for it to become a hit days later.
The filmmaker shared a throwback photo with the film’s ensemble cast, including Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Urmila Matondkar, and Jugal Hansraj. He described how he walked into the theatre on the first day of the release and found just one more person beside him in the cinema hall.
Shekhar Kapur recalls poor opening of Masoom
“On the first day of release, I went to the main theatre… and there were only two people in the whole cinema hall… and one of them was me!” he wrote.
He opened up about the prevalence of ticket black marketing at the time, where young men and gangs would buy up cinema seats to resell at higher prices. Kapur recalled facing angry crowds outside the theatre, “Outside I got surrounded by some pretty angry looking young boys when they discovered I was the director .. they had lost their money that day.”
“I must have looked pretty crestfallen. So one of them actually took pity on me, and said .. ‘Sir .. the problem is you’ve made an ‘article’ film’ .. if you want a career , don’t do that ‘“
“Article film ?? I kept wondering .. article film .. I realized he meant an ‘artistic film’ .. Don’t ever make an artistic film this young black marketeer was trying to warn me .. “
He revealed that from Friday through Tuesday, cinema halls stayed empty, prompting distributors to start pulling the film from theatres and leaving him convinced that his filmmaking career had come to an end.
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“I remember the feeling that day .. when they told me they had decided to give up trying to hold the theatres .. I walked the streets of Mumbai and thought about what I was going to do next in my life , for making films was certainly no longer an option,” the actor wrote.
Throw back pic from my first film, Masoom.
On the first day of release, I went to the main theatre … and there were only two people in the whole cinema hall.. and one of them was me !
Those days ‘black marketing’ of cinema tickets was really prelavent .. young men, or even… pic.twitter.com/FyqT3iFlnx
— Shekhar Kapur (@shekharkapur) February 9, 2026
How Masoom became a hit
Despite the slow start, Kapur shared how the film’s fortunes turned in an unexpected way.
“Something strange happened on Thursday. A friend called me and asked if I could help him get tickets to Masoom. I told him that was a bad joke. On Thursday one cinema hall had filled up .. then on Friday there were lines of people waiting to buy tickets .. and over the weekend the distributors were scrambling to get back the halls they had given up, and my ‘Article’ film was declared a hit .. “
Kapur described it as a mystery, noting that while people attribute the success to “word of mouth,” hardly anyone had initially seen the film. “What happened that Thursday ? .. I still wonder as I am about to go into making ‘Masoom, the next generation’ .. years after Masoom the original became a cult film,” he wrote.
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Kapur ended his post, looking ahead to his upcoming project, Masoom: The Next Generation, and wondering if this new chapter would also be labeled an “article film.”
About Masoom: The Next Generation
A spiritual sequel to the 1983 classic, Masoom: The Next Generation will star the stalwarts from the original, Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah along with Manoj Bajpayee and Nithya Menen. Shekhar’s daughter Kaveri will also feature in the film.
The film promises to delve into modern themes of home, belonging, and the search for personal identity.
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In an earlier interview with SCREEN, Kapur had opened up about taking a shift with his next after Masoom, Bandit Queen. “Bandit Queen was my anger at myself — for not paying attention to fundamental issues in the society. It is a very angry film, it was against myself. What made me so insensitive for not looking at it before? So when I saw the results of my film, in the theatres or wherever I went, people would come out angry. People would ask me, ‘What happened to you, sir? You are such a beautiful filmmaker who made Mr India and Masoom. You’ve made such beautiful films! Yeh kya kar diya? (What have you done?)’”
