The film industry has changed a lot over the years. Now, a movie’s success is measured by how much money it makes. But there was a time when a film’s success was measured by how long it ran in theaters. One movie, in particular, broke all records. It ran for 286 weeks in theaters, beating the record of “Mughal-e-Azam”.
This iconic film is “Sholay”, directed by Ramesh Sippy. It’s been 50 years since its release on August 15, 1975. The screenplay was written by Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, and it’s still widely popular today. The movie had a star-studded cast, including Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Amjad Khan, Hema Malini, and Jaya Bachchan.
A Movie That Sold The Most Tickets
“Sholay” is still widely talked about today. People love quoting its dialogues and singing its songs. The movie was made on a budget of 3 crores and sold a whopping 25 crore tickets. To put that into perspective, that’s more tickets than some of the biggest blockbuster movies today, like “RRR” and “Jawan”.
The ticket prices for “Sholay” were incredibly low. At the Minerva Theater in Mumbai, where the movie ran uninterrupted from 1975 to 1980, tickets cost between 1.50 to 2.00 rupees. The middle row seats cost 2.50 rupees, and the balcony seats cost 3 rupees. The writers, Salim-Javed, were paid a signing amount of 10,000 rupees, which was a significant amount back then.
The Making Of “Sholay”
The making of “Sholay” is a fascinating story. Sanjeev Kumar was initially supposed to play the role of “Gabbar” and had even offered to shave his head and blacken his teeth for the role. Meanwhile, Dharmendra wanted to play the role of “Thakur”, but Ramesh Sippy cleverly convinced him to play the role of “Veeru” instead. Interestingly, Dilip Kumar was initially considered for the role of “Thakur”, and Shatrughan Sinha was considered for the role of “Jai”. But things didn’t work out, and the roles eventually went to other actors.