Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra’s Sholay is one of the most cherished cult classics of all time. The Ramesh Sippy directorial didn’t take off initially but garnered love from the audience over the months after its release. Rohit Shetty whose father had an ego clash with Ramesh Sippy shared his thoughts on why Amitabh Bachchan’s character was killed in the film and Dharmendra’s character survived.
Rohit Shetty explained as quoted by the Indian Express, “Sholay was released but it didn’t work for four days. The makers then decided to reshoot it. Somebody said Gabaar’s voice is not right, somebody said you should revive Amit ji because he became a huge star by the time the film was released. If you see the film again, you will notice that Amit ji’s character is of a friend. Amit ji heightened the role with his performance. If we think about that time, the heroine is a widow and Amit ji didn’t get a song either.”
He added, “Amit ji also doesn’t have solo scenes, there is just one with the Mausi. Every scene is with Dharmendra ji. But Amit ji’s performance was good and by then Zanjeer and Deewar were released. At that time, the lesser hero used to die and Amit ji was the lesser hero in the film than Dharam ji, which is why he died and not Dharam ji. But the film kicked off after four days and it went on for 4.5 years.”
Rohit Shetty also recounted why his father turned down the opportunity to work in Sholay,
“My dad was with Ramesh Sippy for most of his previous films but during Sholay, my dad had an ego tussle. They called a team from overseas to shoot the train sequence and my dad didn’t do that film then. He didn’t regret the decision because he had done so many films in his career. He did over 700 films.”
One of the greatest and most influential films of all time in Bollywood, Sholay became one of the highest-grossing Hindi movies after it was released in 1975. The movie was directed by the renowned filmmaker Ramesh Sippy and starred Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra in lead roles. This movie faced no competition at the box office until the movie Jai Santoshi Maa was released in theatres.
Comments
0 comment