Sholay remake faces an uphill task

A war of words is on between the Sippy clan and Ram Gopal Verma over the rights of making Sholay. It is well known that Ramu intends to remake Sholay. And a few days ago he called in a press conference to announce his plans. Present with him on the occasion was the producer of Sholay - G.P. Sippy.

Varma had made headlines when he said he had got the go-ahead from the Sippy family to remake Sholay in a modern urban setting.

But there are indications of an ongoing dispute within the Sippy family on who has control of the rights to Sholay.

The man who gave the rights to Varma is G P Sippy’s son Ajit. In fact, Ajit had taken his father to the press conference where Varma had made the announcement.

But GP’s grandsons say their grandfather had no idea that he was being taken to endorse Varma’s plan.

For Varma, the sudden turn of events must come as a jolt. He had already pulled off a coup by casting Amitabh Bachchan as the upgraded version of Gabbar Singh and Abhishek as a modern-day Veeru.

When we told him of GP’s statement, he was defiant and said he would go ahead to make the film.

Ramu says that he is not at all concerned/bothered about the family affairs/feuds of the Sippys’, plus they don’t even have an idea about what his version (of ‘Sholay’) is going to be!

But it’s not the end of the story. G.P. Sippy has now sent a formal letter to Varma asking him to take permission from his grandsons or not remake the film.

Incidently ‘Sholay’ was itself based on classic Japanese flick ‘The Seven Samurai’ made by Akira Kurosawa.