It's final. Ram Gopal Varma's Sholay is ready for release. The date is…don't freak out…Friday the 13th of July.

Inauspicious by the Christian calendar. "But not by my calendar. I like to do the unthinkable. That's what I did by doing my own take on Sholay, didn't I?" reasons the resourceful Ramu.

Though he doesn't want to say anything more on the eagerly awaited Amitabh Bachchan-Devgan-Sushmita Sen-Mohanlal starrer, we have it from impeccable sources that a lot of the footage from the original Sholay has been pruned away in the 'remix'.

And the original Ramesh Sippy 3-hrs-19-min epic has been reduced to close to 2-hrs-30-mins in Ramu's version of the epic.

"Though the length has been reduced, there're more characters in Ramu's Sholay than in Sippy's and the new Sholay is very very different from the old," says someone close to the project who's had a dekko.

A sneak peak of the film shows that actor to watch besides Amitabh Bachchan as Gabbar is Sushmita Sen. Dressed in black, her silences as the widowed Radha will stun the audiences.