Shekhar Kapoor Recalls Black Marketeer's "Article Film" Warning for 'Masoom'

Taking to his X timeline to pen a lengthy post about the incident that took place when his first film, 'Masoom', which went on to emerge a superhit and also a cult classic, released, Shekhar Kapoor 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!"

The ace director then explained, "Those days 'black marketing' of cinema tickets was really prelavent ... Young men, or even gangs, would bulk by cinema tickets and then sell them at higher prices on the day of the show. Of course, if the hall was full."

"Except the first show on the first day for 'Masoom', the hall was completely empty!," the director recalled and said, "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.'," he recounted.

"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. Well, the Friday of release, all the cinema halls were empty as they were on Saturday, Sunday , Monday , Tuesday," he said.

"The distributors of the film gave up trying to support the film. It was too expensive to keep the film showing to empty halls," the director said and added, "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," he said.

However, something strange happened on Thursday, the director informed and said a friend had called him to ask if he could help him get tickets to Masoom.

"I told him (the friend) that was a bad joke. But then 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," he said.

"What happened that weekend? People say in retrospect it was 'Word of mouth' but how could it be, when hardly anyone saw the film? What happened that Thursday ? I still wonder as am about to go into making 'Masoom, the next generation' years after Masoom the original became a cult film. Is 'Masoom, the next generation' another 'Article film'?," he wondered.

- IANS