Rohit Shetty says Amitabh Bachchan was killed in Sholay because he was a ‘lesser hero’ than Dharmendra: ‘He doesn’t have solo scenes…’

Filmmaker Rohit Shetty is known for his action-packed films. The director’s training in filmmaking started young with his father MB Shetty, who was a renowned stuntman, action choreographer, and actor in Hindi cinema in the 1970s. In a recent interview, Rohit recalled how his father had an ego tussle with Sholay’s director Ramesh Sippy, leading him to step out of the film. Rohit also recalled how the makers of Sholay were set to reshoot the film after it didn’t receive a good response from the audience for the first four days of release.

Talking about Sholay, Rohit said, “Sholay was released but it didn’t work for four days. The makers then decided to reshoot it. Somebody said Gabaar’s voice is not right, somebody said you should revive Amit ji because he became a huge star by the time the film was released. If you see the film again, you will notice that Amit ji’s character is of a friend. Amit ji heightened the role with his performance. If we think about that time, the heroine is a widow and Amit ji didn’t get a song either.”

He added, “Amit ji also doesn’t have solo scenes, there is just one with the Mausi. Every scene is with Dharmendra ji. But Amit ji’s performance was good and by then Zanjeer and Deewar were released. At that time, the lesser hero used to die and Amit ji was the lesser hero in the film than Dharam ji, which is why he died and not Dharam ji. But the film kicked off after four days and it went on for 4.5 years.”

For Sholay, Ramesh Sippy called for a team from outside India for a few action sequences. This upset MB Shetty, who used to regularly choreograph stunts for Sippy, and he decided not to be a part of Sholay.

Sharing details about how his father MB Shetty opted out of Sholay, Rohit said, “My dad was with Ramesh Sippy for most of his previous films but during Sholay, my dad had an ego tussle. They called a team from overseas to shoot the train sequence and my dad didn’t do that film then. He didn’t regret the decision because he had done so many films in his career. He did over 700 films.”

Sholay is regarded by many as Bollywood’s cult classic, which engaged the audience with its well-woven script, evergreen music, and entertaining dialogues.