Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur Monday recalled how his 1983 film Masoom opened to empty theatres and near-abandonment by distributors before scripting a turnaround that eventually made it a classic.

Sharing a photograph from the film on X, Kapur said only two people, including himself, turned up for the first show on the day of release.

The director recounted an encounter with black-market ticket sellers who had bought tickets in bulk but found no buyers. “Those days ‘black marketing’ of cinema tickets was really prevalent .. 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,” Kapur wrote.

“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’,” the National Award-winning filmmaker wrote.

Kapur said he later realised that the term “article film” was meant to describe an art-house film. He added that theatres remained empty for days after release, prompting distributors to stop supporting the film.

“Well, the Friday of release .. all the cinema halls were empty .. as they were on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. The distributors of the film gave up trying to support the film. It was too expensive to keep the film showing to empty halls. 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 wrote.

Kapur said he had given up on the film when an unexpected development occurred later that week.

“A friend called me and asked if I could help him get tickets to Masoom. I told him 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 recalled.

Kapur, who later directed films such as Mr India, The Bandit Queen and Elizabeth, said he is now working on a follow-up titled Masoom: The Next Generation.

"Is ‘Masoom, the next generation’ another ‘Article film’?" he wondered.

Masoom, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Urmila Matondkar, Jugal Hansraj and Aradhana Srivastav, revolves around a couple whose family life is disrupted when the husband’s illegitimate son comes to live with them after his mother’s death.