From Sholay to Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, multi-starrer films in Bollywood have often been safe bets in Bollywood. But there have been some multi-starrers that have failed at the box office and one of them is the 1980 disaster film The Burning Train, most of which was set in the train named Super Express which catches fire in its inaugural run from Delhi to Mumbai.
The Burning Train starred six superstars namely Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Vinod Khanna, Jeetendra, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Kapoor. Amitabh Bachchan was initially announced as one of the leading heroes, but he later rejected the film. The film also featured a huge number of famous supporting actors including Vinod Mehra, Danny Denzongpa, Navin Nischol, Simi Garewal, Asha Sachdev, Nazir Hussain, Iftekhar, Jagdish Raj, Mac Mohan, Ranjit, and Asrani among others.
Even after starring so many popular names, The Burning Train turned out to be India's biggest flop upon its release. Made on a reported budget of around Rs 25 to Rs 30 crore, the film took a good opening but due to its excessive runtime of more than three hours, the audiences stayed away from it and the film's final collections only stood at around Rs 6 crore.
The 1980 release took five years to finish as the production involved filming in a real train and setting the same on fire. For the same reason, it is said that the director Ravi Chopra rented a train from the Indian government. During the shoot when the train and other railway properties suffered damages worth crores, the government asked the filmmaker to compensate for the same but he refused since he was already in debt after The Burning Train had flopped.
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