SHOLAY, which released fifty years ago, remains the biggest BLOCKBUSTER that India has ever seen and there is a good chance the film will probably hold this title forever as nothing has really come close. In fact, it can be said with almost total confidence that nothing will ever come close. There are adjectives like phenomenal and extraordinary used today for many films like BAAHUBALI 2: THE CONLCUSION, GADAR 2, JAWAN, STREE 2, PUSHPA 2 - THE RULE and more so when they are used for these films. In that case, SHOLAY can't really be described in words as its far bigger. On top if that, many films today have manufactured collections to reach the levels which they finally reach.

Till today, there remains a huge misconception that SHOLAY did not open well and the film picked up and this is in the industry as well. Nothing can be further from the truth. The film broke all the records on release with higher admission rates (Bombay) than normal (this used to happen even then) in almost every cinema it was released.

The best way to explain this misconception is NOISE. Its something much that much of the industry will understand today as today when a film releases there is a lot of NOISE which can be positive or negative but may not be same as the result of the film. This would have been the same case with SHOLAY as no way is the initial anything short of bumper. The same critic community that today probably raves about the film had bummed the film but this is how public changes the opinion of a minority who had no clue and probably still does not.

The film was first released in Bombay and Ahmedabad and so the reaction of the public may not have been the jump out of seats type as in both centres it was the social films and dramas which were more liked rather than action films especially dacoit action films. The earlier dacoit film, MERA GAON MERA DESH, which was a huge BLOCKBUSTER and very similar to SHOLAY had come to Bombay circuit after it had already emerged a huge BLOCKBUSTER in Delhi/UP.

It was the case with all dacoit films as MERA GAON MERA DESH was the only dacoit film before SHOLAY to emerge a big blockbuster in Mumbai. But still collections remained less than a HAATHI MERE SAATHI, the other big blockbuster released in the same year though they were far ahead in Delhi. Basically SHOLAY was huge HIT from the first show but the NOISE around the film within the industry and trade probably perturbed the makers as the cost of the film was more than double of anything released before.

The film opened in East Punjab a week later on August 21, 1975 and here the response was wild and it would have been clear that film would create history as Delhi/UP and the Central markets and Bihar had a tendency for similar results. In those days, even West Bengal was similar to the Northern and Central circuits. It opened in these circuits on October 3, 1975 and the response was exactly as in East Punjab.

The film eventually went on to do a GOLDEN JUBILEE (50 weeks consecutive run) in 28 cinemas and in those days if a film did SILVER JUBILEE (25 weeks consecutive run) in 10 cinemas it would be a BLOCKBUSTER film. SHOLAY was not just about what it did in those first fifty weeks as it remained a theatrical beast for the next two decades also until the repeat run business slowly died due to satellite television and single screens shut up shop as multiplexes came along. The film eventually trebled the business it had done in the first year.

The list of the Golden Jubilee cinemas for SHOLAY are as follows.

1. Minerva - Bombay

2. Roopali - Ahmedabad

3. Alankar - Baroda

4. Galaxy - Rajkot

5. Apollo - Pune

6. Usha - Kolhapur

7. Meena - Sholapur

8. Rex - Belgaum

9. Ajanta - Hubli

10. Plaza - Delhi

11. Novelty - Delhi

12. Sundar - Kanpur

13. Leela - Lucknow

14. Raghunath - Agra

15. Anand - Varanasi

16. Gautam - Allahabad

17. Menka - Meerut

18. Krishna - Gorakhpur

19. Raj - Amritsar

20. Panchsheel - Nagpur

21. Manek - Akola

22. Krishna - Bhopal

23. Regal - Ujjain

24. Jyoti - Calcutta

25. Ramakrishna - Hyderabad

26. Santosh - Bangalore

27. Satyam - Madras

28. Delite - Coimbatore

The opening collections of SHOLAY were as follows and records were SMASHED wherever it opened unlike what is said in the media and much of the industry believes.

Minerva - 7,470 (HF)

New Excelsior - 7,992 (HF)

Geeta - 5,285 (HF)

Ganesh - 4,828 (HF)

Deepak - 4,640 (HF)

Sharda - 4,970 (HF)

Badal - 6,207 (HF)

Aurora - 4,746 (HF)

Neptune - 6,252 (HF)

Kala Mandir - 7,524 (HF)

Milan - 4,873 (HF)

Chandan - 4,561 (HF)

Bahar - 4,628 (HF)

Oscar - 4,949 (HF)

Sangam - 4,798 (HF)

Hanjer - 5,730 (HF)

Samrat - 7,587 (HF)

New Era - 4,621 (HF)

Sona - 4,930 (HF)

Jaya - 4,347 (HF)

Akash - 3,999 (HF)

Kalpana - 5,483 (HF)

Basant - 5,564 (HF)

Sahakar - 5,251 (HF)

Shreyas - 6,635 (HF)

Odeon - 5,730 (HF)

Anand - 5,844 (HF)

Vandana - 5,690 (HF)

New Prakash - 3,906 (HF)

Sapna - 3,941 (HF)

Prabhat - 3,830 (HF)

Haseen - 5,662 (HF)

Rupali - 7,121 (HF)

Anupam - 6,855 (HF)

Milan - 5,715 (HF)

Mohan - 4,673 (HF)

Priya - 5,072 (HF)

Sapna - 3,923 (HF)

Lalit Mahal - 3,487 (HF)

Drive In - 7,465 

Jyoti Jalandhar - 9,389 (Over Capacity)

Gagan Amritsar - 12,190  (Over Capacity)

Aarti Ludhiana - 10,978 (Over Capacity)

Swarn Jammu - 6,077 (Over Capacity)

Jagat Chandigarh - 5,596 (HF)

Malwa Patiala - 5,743 (Over Capacity)

Hari Ambala - 5,417  (Over Capacity)

Pushpa Hissar - 4,452 (Over Capacity)

KC Karnal - 4,987 (HF)

Kapali Bangalore - 8,856 (HF)

Apsara Bngalore - 6,453 (HF)

Nandi Bangalore - 4,714 (HF)

Nalanda Bangalore - 4,235 (HF) 

Lavanya Bangalore - 3,765 (HF)

Galaxy Bangalore - 5,003 (HF)

Geethanjali Bangalore- 3,425  

Sujatha Bangalore - 4,249 (HF)

Govardhan Bangalore - 3,089 

Sangeet Bangalore - 1,662 (HF) Morning shows only

The film then opened in Delhi /UP,  CP, CI Rajasthan, Nizam/Andhra and East India on 3rd October 1975 to a similar bumper response breaking all opening day records in all these circuits. Again like East Punjab, many theatres in UP, Bihar and West Bengal went over capacity from first day.

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The biggest BLOCKBUSTER ever in India, SHOLAY, is celebrating its fifty years and it set records which were unthinkable and the records are a never ending story. Pages can be written about the records as one they are huge and second all genuine and non of the manufactured stuff which goes on aplenty today for even the bigger grossers. The records were set across the country even in the cities of the South where it had numbers competing with the biggest regional films be it Madras, Hyderabad or Bangalore.

A feat of the film in Bombay was that the main cinema Minerva opened its current booking in the 62nd week. Basically the film celebrated a Golden Jubilee and yet current was not open as film was going full in advance. The film ran for 269 weeks in this cinema with 149 weeks coming with regular shows and then 118 weeks in matinee and then a further two weeks in regular shows and these two final weeks went 100% and it could have went on and on. Nothing was pushed here which was the case at that time as many films were run in deficit especially in Bombay city to reach a certain benchmark be it 25 weeks, 50 weeks and even 60 and 75 weeks. SHOLAY was replaced with another huge film from the same production house, SHAAN, which also ran very well in the cinema.

SHOLAY celebrated a Golden Jubilee at Galaxy cinema in Rajkot (Gujarat) and the total numbers are below of its fifty week run. The film opened to a bumper response of 100% collecting exactly 3,901.02 nett on the first day.  Again a bumper opening here and again totally opposite of the NOISE which said and still says the film opened poorly.

Nett - 9,83,400

Gross - 20,12,991

The numbers above done really mean much today but what has to be added is that Rajkot had a population of 3.65 lakh at the time. The footfalls of the film are more than double the population of the city and this does not mean that everyone watched it twice or a lot if people watched it many times. There will be people who repeated the film but the footfalls were so high as so many people were coming from smaller towns and villages in and around Rajkot. It was not the story in Rajkot but many centres across the country. This was the audience which made film huge blockbusters but it started to dwindle from the start of the century though even today this is the audience which makes  KGF - CHAPTER 2, GADAR 2 or PUSHPA 2 - THE RULE what they are though obviously not to the level of SHOLAY.

A lot today is said that India needs more screens. But when the major films are SITAARE ZAMEEN PAR, KESARI and HOUSEFULL 5 types, then this village and small town audience is unlikely to go to the cinema even if they had one property closer to their homes. If the content is correct, screens will see a natural growth and that is what happened from 1960 till the early eighties. Today, there will be obstacles for screen growth but when something has a profit in it, then it happens and only way the exhibition can grow is with good films and plenty of them.

To put this these SHOLAY numbers into perspective is that today Rajkot has a population of 20 lakh and the value of those SHOLAY footfalls with todays population is 75 crore nett plus. Forget Rajkot, the only film has crossed this mark in Gujarat circuit till date and that is PUSHPA 2 - THE RULE. Obviously, things have changed with cinema and the stars not having the same craze in the last 2-3 decades as the golden days. But it probably has a little to do with the western type of content churned out by the industry as well and it becoming a very English industry.