MUMBAI: The cult classic is back, and it continues to captivate audiences. Ramesh Sippy's Sholay, the tale of two small-time lawbreakers freeing a village from the clutches of a fearsome bandit has raked in about Rs 6 crore in net collections in the opening weekend of a rerun nearly four decades after it first hit cinema halls.
The 1975 film, being screened in 850 movie halls across the country in 3D and 2D, has pulled in more moolah than some of the latest Bollywood films. "While the craze may not be like 1975, we saw 100% attendance at Gaiety, Galaxy and Maratha Mandir, which in all is a capacity of 1,500 seats," said Manoj Desai, owner of the two theatre complexes.
The film stars Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Amjad Khan and Hema Malini among others. Its cult status is underscored by the tales associated with it. For instance, according to Umesh Mehra, the owner of Minerva where the film premiered and ran for six years, Sholay's record run boosted the profits of all associated with it, be it the batatawada stall owner outside the cinema hall who made enough money to help him buy a taxi or the guys who sold tickets by the hordes in black which helped them to buy flats!
"For two years, every show of 1,400 seats (100 less because of 70mm) went houseful and the queues to buy advance tickets every Friday were half a mile long, 4,200 people every day," Mehra said, adding that they were forced to reduce the number of tickets a person could purchase to check black marketing.
Several multiplex operators have welcomed Sholay's re-run. Gautam Dutta, the COO of PVR, India's largest multiplex with over 400 screens, said the film has received good response from moviegoers nation-wide, especially in small towns like Latur and Allahabad among several others.
Devang Sampat, Cinepolis' chief strategy officer, said, "Though the film opened slow, word of mouth has been very strong and the film has picked up, so I see a long run with a limited show window as it is a film that will make up its own slot. Bangalore has got good response, Pune has been fantastic."
For producers Jayantilal Gada and Sasha Sippy, the math is working fine. "This is history. We have recovered our marketing cost over the weekend and our target is to get 25% recovery from the box office, 50% from television, 15% from overseas and 10% from world video. We have given youngsters a chance to see Sholay in theatres and we have given people a reason to revisit the theatres for old classics by making Sholay in 3D," Gada added.
Film producers should milk the maximum-screen opening strategy while it lasts. Global trends suggest production houses' share of revenue from screening of films is steadily on the decline, apart from being increasingly chancy. Watching movies in theatres is a fading habit. When India's broadband infrastructure and consumer access mature — as they promise to, dramatically — larger and more stable revenues will come from streaming and television rights, advertising and spinoffs such as gaming and merchandising. The present 3D-isation of a classic must be seen as the beginning of such a needed versatile strategy in the business of making movies.
The 3D version is produced by Sascha Sippy, who is the grandson of the original's producer GP Sippy. The 3D version was made on a budget of ₹20 crore.
The film raked in ₹1.50 crore on Friday and ₹2.25 crore on Saturday from the Indian markets.
"#Sholay3D Fri 1.50 cr, Sat 2.25 cr. Total: ₹ 3.75 cr nett.
