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

Footfalls - 6,70,439

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 are 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 2 , Gadar 2 or Pushpa 2 what they are though obviously not to the level of Sholay.

A lot today is said that India needs more screens what 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 closer. 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 was 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 and forget Rajkot the only film has crossed this mark in Gujarat circuit till date and that is Pushpa 2. 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.