Even after 30 years of its release, Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay seems to be the inspiration for many filmmakers. We have seen many copies of Sholay in the past – Aandhi Toofan, Mela, Karma – to name a few – they all took their inspiration from Sholay. And, most recently, after Ram Gopal Varma announced his intentions to start work on the remake of Sholay, television’s self-crowned queen, producer Ektaa Kapoor announced a Bhojpuri Sholay. Now Ajay Chandok, who has just finished Nehle Pe Dehla with Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan and Bipasha Basu, has also started work on his film titled Phir Sholay.

It has been learnt that the film stars Arbaaz Khan, Javed Jaffrey, Aashish Chowdhary and Akshay Kapoor in lead roles. However, the director is in no mood to reveal anything, “Yes, I am making the film but I would not like to comment on anything as of now. Let the right time come and I will talk about it,” is all he’s willing to say at the moment.

Incidentally Ektaa’s film, which is directed by Mahesh Pande, is focused on Gabbar Singh while Ram Gopal Varma’s Sholay is the modern version of the classic where Amitabh Bachchan plays Gabbar Singh while Ajay Devgan plays Veeru. His other casts keep changing though. Jai, which was initially played by Mohit Ahlawat, is now being played by Prashant Raj, a model.

Of course apart from wondering which of these films will actually capture the audience attention, we’re also wondering if the audience will really be able to take this Sholay hat-trick! What do you say folks?