(UDHAYAM, MUMBAI) – ‘Sholay,’ the cult that it is, has many a tale yet to be revealed to the younger generation. Not many know that Danny Denzongpa was the first choice for the iconic role of Gabbar Singh.
Confirming this little tidbit Ramesh Sippy revealed more, saying, “The signing amount cheque given to Danny then to perform the role of Gabbar Singh is still lying with him. Usually whenever he meets me he keeps reminding me if he could return that signing amount cheque to me now.”
Ramesh Sippy also elaborated on how Danny’s loss proved to be Amjad Khan’s gai.
“It so happened that Danny was finalized for the role of Gabbar Singh. In those days no other villain was as famous as Danny. Thus we were desirous of him performing the character. Undeniably, destiny had something else in store. When we were about to begin shooting Sholay, Danny got busy shooting Feroz Khan’s film, Dharmata”. We had to thus take a look test and there entered Amjad Khan. We auditioned him and the moment he wore the attire with that standard belt, we were all awed and felt that we hag got our villain –Gabber Singh.”
All praises for ‘Baahubali: The Conclusion’ Ramesh Sippy said, “Baahubali: The Conclusion is the first ever film in the Hindi industry that garnered such enormous eyeballs. The tremendous success at the box-office that it has received is historical. There can be no comparisons with our film what so ever.”
Adding more on how ‘Sholay’ was written off by the critics even before it could see the dawn at the theatres, Sippy said, “The critics had already declared Sholay a flop. The trade pundits were not hopeful of the recovery as this was made with a huge budget of 3 crores with the additional promotional amount of 2 crores, which thus made the budget approximately 5 crores. There was bad mouthing already for almost 2 days stating that Sholay is a super duper flop flick. We were visiting theaters and all over the theaters we could not see a single soul. The theatres were almost empty.
“Not losing hope we decided to visit a well known cinema hall named Geeta situated at Worli. The manager took us to the canteen and said, ‘All these eatables and edibles are being wasted as no one is ready to taste or eat them ever since the time your film Sholay is been running in our theatres.’ We were tongue tied, but he smiled and informed us the reason of the canteen being deserted, which came to us like a shock. He said, ‘Sholay is one film which has never been made. Audiences are thronging in mad rush. They do not wish to miss even a single frame. And thus our canteen is left deserted.”
Further speaking on the ‘Sholay’-‘Baahubali: The Conclusion’ comparison, the veteran director said, “Baahubali: The Conclusion has made money right from its first show, whereas Sholay was declared a flop, only to later come back on track after a few days. There can be no comparison to Baahubali: The Conclusion.”
