Here’s why Jeethu Joseph won’t direct others’ remakes anymore

Director Jeethu Joseph has been one of the most sought-after filmmakers from Mollywood after the success of his film Drishyam, which was remade in several languages. While he himself has currently finished directing the Telugu remake of Drishyam 2 with Venkatesh, Jeethu tells us that he will not be helming remakes of others’ films.

This decision stemmed from the bitter experience he had during the direction of the Bollywood film titled The Body, which was the remake of the Spanish film of the same name.

In an interview with OTTplay, the filmmaker said, “The movie was a disappointment for me due to a variety of reasons. After that I have decided that I will never remake anyone else’s film; I will do remakes of my own film but not of others’. Secondly, it was the first time in my career that I had to deal with a lot of interference. This was not from the actors. I don’t want to name them but there was a lot of meddling during the editing and other processes, and I felt uncomfortable with that.”

Jeethu also said remaking a foreign film has its own challenges. “I also understood that there’s no use in doing such films because we can’t make a lot of changes. When you adapt a foreign film to our culture, there’s bound to be a lot of problems and we had to change the climax two to three times,” he said.

Since that experience with The Body, Jeethu says that he now clearly mentions before signing a film that his decision will be final. “I am in talks with two to three Bollywood projects right now. That’s the industry from which I get the most offers and I put forth this condition. It doesn’t mean I am not open to suggestions, but it’s just that the final decision should be mine. Only if they agree to that, I will do that film,” he said.