Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Hema Malini, Jaya Bachchan, Amjad Khan starrer ‘Sholay’ is now considered the biggest film of Hindi cinema. It’s a cult and how. And just as the movie is set to complete 50 years now on August 15, here’s recalling the fact that the film was considered a flop initially. Everything went against the film, people thought that the movie has lots of ‘wrong’ things which made it a huge flop. The end saw Amitabh Bachchan dying and the makers also considered changing the climax because it was not working. But things changed and how. In an old interview with Rajeev Masand on News18 Showsha, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar who are the writers of ‘Sholay’ spoke about the film and how it made history. The legendary duo Salim-Javed, was asked that when ‘Sholay’ initially released, it was called a flop. They were asked, ‘The Sippys (Ramesh Sippy and team) also got into damage control but you guys stopped them and said nothing has to be changed.”Reacting to it, Salim Khan said, “That time the maximum business was done by ‘Haathi Mere Saathi’, which was Rs 90 lakhs per territory. So, we just went ahead and added about Rs 10 lakhs and said, Sholay will do more than Rs 1 crore in each territory. People started laughing, making fun of us and they thought Rs 1 crore yeh all India ka total business hoga. But we went wrong and terribly wrong as the film actually made more than that. It made Rs 2-3 crore per territory.” Javed Akhtar recalled, “A Trade magazine had taken out a supplement and said, ‘Why Sholay has flopped?’ They put out the reasons because everything was wrong with it. The casting is wrong, the emotions were negative, all that was written in it.” Salim Khan added further, “They also said, Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar unke saamne aapne ek naya villain khada kiya hai. He became the biggest villain eventually.” Akhtar chuckled and said, “A major film star who is totally devoid of sense of humour, he said you have given a negative feeling. A friend goes and destroys his friend’s marriage and is this funny?” Clearly, against all odds, the movie was a huge hit at the box office and proved to be a cult. The film, its songs, dialogues and the characters are still celebrated over the years. ‘Sholay’ was made under a budget of Rs 3 crore and went on to earn Rs 15 crore that time. As per today’s inflated prices, 50 years later, the collection would be considered much higher.
