Internet reacts as Julia Roberts replaces Hema Malini, Robert De Niro is Amitabh Bachchan’s Jai in Sholay’s AI version

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has shared a viral AI version of Sholay, which reimagines Robert De Niro in Amitabh Bachchan’s role of Jai and Al Pacino as Dharmendra’s Veeru. Not only this, Julia Roberts is a total delight as Basanti, while Jack Nicholson also looks impressive as Gabbar and Kevin Spacey as Thakur Baldev Singh, respectively. Also read: Amitabh Bachchan recalls playing rummy with Dharmendra on way to Sholay shoot: ‘Hum ek he gaadi mein set tak jaate the’

Sharing the video, Ram Gopal Varma tweeted, “What if Robert De Niro played Amitabh Bachchan, Al Pacino played Dharmendra, Julia Roberts played Hema Malini, Kevin Spacey played Sanjeev Kumar and Jack Nicholson played Gabbar in SHOLAY??? Artificial intelligence is just KILLING it.”

Internet reacts to Sholay’s AI version

Fans loved the Sholay casting and the video. A fan reacted, “Julia Roberts is cute.” Another called it “great”. One more wrote, “Perfect casting though.” A Twitter user, however, called it ‘super scary’. A fan also said, “Yes, it is killing pure art.”

Ram Gopal Varma once adapted Sholay for Aag

Ram Gopal Varma is known for directing films like Nishabd, Sarkar, Bhoot, Company, Jungle, Satya and Rangeela. He once also made an adaptation of Sholay and gave it the title Aag, which was popularly called Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag. The 2007 film had Amitabh Bachchan, Mohanlal, Ajay Devgan, Prashant Raj, Sushmita Sen and many others among the starcast but was heavily criticised by the critics and the audience.

More about Sholay

The original Sholay was directed by Ramesh Sippy and written by Salim-Javed (Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar). Amitabh Bachchan played Jai and Dharmendra played Veeru in Sholay. Sanjeev Kumar played Thakur while Jaya Bachchan played his widowed daughter-in-law Radha. Hema Malini was a riot as a tonga-rider Basanti and Amjad Khan was in the role of the lead antagonist, Gabbar. RD Burman had composed music for the film. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential Indian film of all time.

Sholay however, was a flop upon its release but slowly caught momentum. Salim Khan once told Glamsham in an interview, “Yes it is true when the movie was released Bollywood trade pundits had written off the movie. In fact a series of analytical articles probing the reasons behind the failure of the movie were also published in trade magazines!”