1. Sholay was inspired by John Sturges’ The Magnificent 7. It was far far superior to Sturges’ film which came in 1960. In it a Mexican village is protected from marauders by seven hired mercenaries. The bandit villain was played by the legendary Eli Wallach. He was no patch on Amjad Khan’s Gabbar Singh. Ramesh Sippy’s version of the story has more interesting characters and the situations of conflict between the mercenaries and the marauders was far more electric in Sholay. In short Sholay was far more magnificent than The Magnificent 7.
2. Danny Denzongpa was the original choice to play Gabbar Singh. But he was busy with Feroz Khan’s Dharmatma in Kabul, Afghanistan.Director Ramesh Sippy told me he was really keen on Danny. So were the scriptwriters Salim-Javed. But Danny sees it as destiny.He feels because of Amjad and Gabbar Singh, the equity of the villains’ brigade rose in Bollywood.
3. Shatrughan Sinha said no to Jai’s role which Amitabh Bachchan eventually did. At that point in his career Sinha didn’t want to do another two-hero film.Mr Bachchan wanted to play Gabbar Singh.
4. When Sholay released there was a state of Emergency in India. The film was 3 hours 24 minutes long. Even if the first show began at 8.30 am the last show could get over by midnight. Those were uncertain times. Back then films opened in ‘B’ and ‘C’ centres after they played in ‘A’ centres. So before Sholay could release in Punjab the film’s distributors Rajshri Productions went to Ramesh Sippy and very politely asked him if they could shorten the film. The Sholay team decided to take out the comedy tracks with Asraniji and Jagdeepji. But when the film released there was an outcry about the cuts, so both the tracks had to be restored.
5. Sholay was declared DOA. Almost every critic of that period decried the film’s length and storytelling.In the first week the film was declared a flop. Its boxoffice collections picked up in the second week and it went on to become one of the biggest hits of all times.