Sholay (directed by Ramesh Sippy and written by Javed Akhtar and Salim Khan) is considered to be the most successful movie in the history of Indian film. It is influenced by American western films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), the spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and also Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954). To match the magnitude of the American westerns, Sholay was to be India’s first 70 mm film with stereophonic sound, but due to the expense involved, it was shot on 35 mm film and then converted to 70 mm widescreen format.