Fifty years after its release, Sholay, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra alongside Hema Malini, Sanjeev Kumar and Amjad Khan, is back in theatres with its original ending—one that audiences never got to see the first time. For director Ramesh Sippy, the re-release has reopened memories of a time when the film was written off long before it became a classic.
Ramesh Sippy recalls harsh early criticism
During a conversation with Siddharth Kannan, Sippy recalled how brutal the initial verdict was. “Newspapers declared Sholay a flop. They wrote that the investment was too high, that the makers would never recover it. They even claimed that such expensive films would destroy the industry. If filmmakers continued spending like this, the industry would sink. But five weeks later, they took back their words and admitted they were wrong.”The doubts weren’t unfounded—at least in the eyes of trade experts back then. Sholay had gone wildly over budget, something Sippy himself acknowledges. “The film’s initial budget was Rs 1 crore, but we ended up making it for Rs 3 crore. Rs 1 crore then is equal to about Rs 100 crore today.”And when the opening weekend turned out to be unexpectedly silent, the industry didn’t just observe—it celebrated. Sippy says, “The industry was happy. They said, ‘Good that the big film didn’t work.’”According to him, this wasn’t casual gossip but a genuine fear that the film’s scale would destabilise the business. “This was the discussion among distributors, exhibitors, and producers. They thought the film would destroy them. People thought we were crazy to make something so expensive.”
Censor board forced a new climax during Emergency
But scepticism wasn’t the only challenge. The film’s ending was altered under pressure from the censor board, forcing Sippy to abandon his planned climax. He explains, “I had to reshoot the climax because of the censor board. They said, ‘Sanjeev Kumar is playing a police officer—how can he take someone’s life?’ According to them, he couldn’t kill Gabbar; Gabbar had to be sent to jail.”It was a time when questioning authority was not an option. “This was during the Emergency. You couldn’t argue with anyone. If the censor board ordered a change, you had no choice. I had to return to Bangalore and shoot the climax all over again.” Five decades later, the filmmaker has finally been able to restore what was originally intended—an ending he never wanted to change.“In the re-release, we will show you the original ending. I felt terrible when they asked me to change it. Why should the censor tell me how to make my film?”
