People want me to direct only dance films: Remo D'Souza

Remo D'Souza says he at times feel caught in the notion that being a choreographer he could only do justice to direction if making a dance-based film. 

Remo made his feature directorial debut with "F.A.L.T.U" (2011), which was a hit, his next two releases "ABCD: Any Body Can Dance" (2013), "ABCD 2" (2015) were huge blockbusters. But his 2016 superhero film "A Flying Jatt", featuring Tiger Shroff, and Salman Khan-starrer "Race 3" (2018) both failed to strike a chord with the audience, despite having top stars.

"I think people want me to do only dance films. 'A Flying Jatt' is close to my heart because it had a solid message but sadly it did not work and this is all part of the industry," Remo told PTI in an interview here. "There are people who say these films ('A Flying Jatt', 'Race 3') were not my forte. How can you decide it is not my forte? A director has no forte. A director can direct any film, if it is not successful then that doesn't mean that this is not his forte. People believe I am good at dance films as I have great knowledge about it," he added. 

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His next directorial is "Street Dancer 3D" that will arrive in theatres on January 24 and Remo is in equal parts nervous as well as excited for the movie. "The shoot is done, the post-production is happening. It is 3D so it is taking time. We are coming out with the trailer in December," he revealed. The filmmaker is reuniting with his "ABCD 2" leads -- Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor for "Street Dancer 3D" and he said the trio share "smooth" chemistry. 

"We have done one film earlier we had a great rapport. I know their strengths and we know what we want from each other for a film. The chemistry is smooth. After 'ABCD 2', for 'Street Dancer 3D' Varun and Shraddha have surprised me. They are amazing. They both are at the top of their game," Remo said. 

The 45-year-old choreographer-director is back as a super judge on the fifth season of Star Plus dance reality show "Dance+", which is currently on air. The previous seasons saw three captains - Punit Pathak, Dharmesh Yelande and Shakti Mohan, but this year Shakti will not be a part of the show and Suresh Mukund and Karishma Chavan have joined in.

"There is a new talent that comes in every year, then we have two new captains. I love being part of this show as I get to learn and see new talent every year, see new forms of dance, where the kids are coming from nowhere and becoming something big."

Recently, choreographer Terence Lewis, who has judged several dance reality shows, said contestants often invest a lot of money to win the series as securing maximum votes is nothing but a "big game." On this, Remo said, "I have no idea about this. I am hearing for the first time that people put money. I don't know about any other show but our show ('Dance +') is absolutely real. We don't have a script and we talk straight from our heart." 

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