4 min readMumbaiJun 28, 2026 01:10 PM IST
Shekhar Kapur hasn’t shied away from expressing his fascination with the use of Artificial Intelligence in filmmaking. He recently even shared an AI-generated behind-the-scenes picture from his 1983 seminal family drama Masoom. The Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi-starrer was also his directorial debut. Now, the veteran filmmaker has turned his attention to yet another phenomenon in the international film ecosystem — microdramas.
Shekhar Kapur claims Indian microdramas valued at $1.5 billion
Shekhar Kapur on Sunday took to his X handle and wrote, “The whole world suddenly is talking about microdramas. They should. In China, the current value in is almost $150 billion by the end of 2026. That’s nearly twice the annual box office of their films at a fraction of the cost. Indian microdrama market is valued at US $1.5 billion in 2026. And to give it context, Indian theatrical box office is also $1.5 billion for 2026!”
Microdrama is a bite-sized, vertically formatted video series optimised for mobile viewing. A microdrama episode typically ranges from 1 to 2 minutes in runtime. Some of the most popular platforms for microdramas in India are ReelShort, Pocket FM, GoodShort, and Flick TV, among others. They’re powered mostly by promotions on social media like Instagram and TikTok.
Shekhar Kapur on microdramas’ limitation
However, like AI, Shekhar Kapur also feels that microdramas are currently not in a position to completely outthrow the traditional cinema model. “But do not expect a Mughal-E-Azam, a Sholay, a Mr India or a Masoom to arise from a microdrama,” he added. While he’s the director of Masoom and the 1987 hit superhero movie Mr. India, starring Anil Kapoor, Mughal-E-Azam and Sholay are directed by K Asif and Ramesh Sippy, respectively. Mughal-E-Azam (1960) is a period romance which starred Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, and Prithviraj Kapoor. Sholay (1975), an action thriller, featured Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, and Jaya Bachchan among others.
“For that’s not the business. MicroDrama is a business of scale.. which is why the rush to invest and grab a massive market share comes first from technology companies and existing platforms. And AI now offers huge opportunities for scaling production more efficiently and economically. But storytelling? Scale plus AI may be a compelling business vision… but does storytelling lend itself to scale? That remains to be seen,” he added.
Shekhar Kapur revealed that he’d been evolving the script of his upcoming directorial Masoom 2: A New Generation for the past two years. But it can’t be adapted into the microdrama format. “For microdrama still needs to define itself… is it a great business idea? Yes. Will great stories come out of it? Time will tell,” the filmmaker concluded his post, attaching a poster of Masoom along with it.
Written by Gulzar, Masoom revolved around the rift caused in the marriage of Indu (Shabana Azmi) and DK (Naseeruddin Shah) after he brings home his son from an adulterous relationship with dead girlfriend Bhavana (Supriya Pathak). The film also starred Tanuja, Saeed Jaffrey, and Satish Kaushik, along with Jugal Hansraj and Urmila Matondkar as child artistes.
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Masoom 2: A New Generation, a spiritual sequel to Shekhar Kapur’s directorial debut, is all set to reunite Shabana and Naseeruddin 20 years after their pairing in Rohit Roy’s segment Rice Plate in the 2007 anthology Dus Kahaniyaan. Also starring Manoj Bajpayee and Nithya Menen, it’ll also mark the theatrical debut of Shekhar and his ex-wife Suchitra Krishnamoothi’s daughter Kaveri Kapur.
Shekhar Kapur claims the value of Indian microdramas in 2026 is $1.5 billion.