India's first 70-milimeter, stereophonic-sound film. It premiered at Mumbai's Minerva theatre.
Was about to be removed from cinemas because of low attendance figures, but attendance started rising and word-of-mouth made it Indian cinema's biggest hit to date with some screens playing the film for several years.
Danny Denzongpa, who was initially offered the role of Gabbar Singh, was busy shooting Dharmatma (1975) in Afhganistan. He could not accept the role, and the reluctant second choice 'Amjad Khan' got it instead.
Initially, 'Dharmendra' was keen to play the role of Thakur Baldev Singh. He eventually relented when the director informed him that Sanjeev Kumar would play Veeru if that happened, and would get the heroine. Sanjeev Kumar had just then proposed marriage to Hema Malini. Dharmendra was in love with her and quickly went back to the role of Veeru.
The famous overhead tank scene where Veeru threatens Mausi with suicide and Jai attempts at making a proposal of marriage was drawn from a real-life incident.
Director Manmohan Desai was first approached by the writing duo of Javed Akhtar and Salim Khan with the story for this movie. He was busy shooting Chacha Bhatija (1977) and could not accept the project.
Actor 'Amjad Khan' was almost dropped from the project because scriptwriter 'Javed Akhtar' found his voice too weak for Gabbar Singh's role.
This film was directly inspired by the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, by Akira Kurosawa's Shichinin no samurai (1954), Bandidos (1967) among others. Some critics at the time even began calling it a curry western.
Amitabh Bachchan was almost killed at the end of the movie when a stray bullet from 'Dharmendra' missed him by inches.
The train robbery sequence took about 20 days to film on the Mumbai-Pune line, near Panvel.
Amjad Khan's calling one of his associates Sambha caught the fancy of not just moviegoers but also producers. Because of this, a producer promptly announced a movie titled "Sambha."
This was the first film in the history of Indian cinema to celebrate a silver-jubilee (25-week) initial release at over 100 across India.
The film was shot extensively in Ramnagaram near Bangalore, India. There are huge rocks of granite in this town which formed the backdrop of Gabbar Singh's hideout. As a mark of respect, the people of Ramnagaram renamed a hamlet in the town as Sippynagar after the director of the movie, Ramesh Sippy.
The flamboyant Shatrughan Sinha was initially cast for the role of Jai, but Amitabh Bachchan convinced the producers that he was suitable for the role.
Sholay's initial theatrical release was 10 years, where it played in a Mumbai theater. This record lasted until it was broken by Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), which was still in its initial theatrical release as of 2007.
Hema Malini is not any scenes with Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri because Sanjeev had just proposed to Hema, and she did not want to be near him.
Initially a song called "Ke Chand Sa Koi Chehra" was recorded which is a qawwali, but the song was dropped from the movie owing to the length of the movie. One of the singers of the song was the lyricist Anand Bakshi while the others were Manna Dey, Kishore Kumar and Bhupendra.
