Roadside Romeo

Roadside Romeo is a 2008 animated musical romantic comedy film written and directed by Jugal Hansraj in his directorial debut,[4] produced by Aditya Chopra and Yash Chopra of Yash Raj Films and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in the United States, the United Kingdom and India.

One day his owners decide to migrate to London, and he is left at the mercy of the servant of the house, who dumps him on the streets of Mumbai.

Left to fend for himself, he is soon cornered by the local gang – Guru, Interval, Hero English, and a dog-wannabe-cat, Mini, who tell him that this is their domain.

The next morning, Romeo throws his sack onto an open train boxcar about to leave the station, but Charlie arrives with Laila and the others.

She reaches for his hand and grabs it, but the handle Romeo was holding had lost its top screws, making him fall off with Laila, after which they raise their heads to each other and say "I love you" in sync.

Nothing came of the collaboration, the writer/director recalls, "till this one day, I was waiting at the traffic signal and saw these dogs playing in the dirt... un-cared for, scruffy looking gang, totally mast in a garbage pile, and I instantly knew the characters of my story.

Production commenced in January 2007, continuing for two and a half years and involved 150 crew members; twenty-one months were spent on the animation.

while the studio's IT Engineers developed 1,400 shots was rendered on Autodesk Flame on a dual-processor digital pipeline equipped by the fastest supercomputers at the time.

While the film's animation was handled in Maya final color grade was performed by Prime Focus Technologies, using Lustre.

[8][9] It also benefited from the use of Tata Elxsi's EKA,[10] That the company did not publicly release the film's budget,[11] Britain's Guardian reported it to be about US$7 million.

Hot Muggs integrated an inaugural concept of incorporating one-liners from the movie like "Tension Not," "Stay Cool" and "I'm Good Na" on coffee mugs.

During the weekend of its release, the film faced competition from Heroes, hence it opened to a poor response of 40- 45%,[clarification needed][17] which improved two days later to 60–70%.

Though the film was targeted at children, he said Charlie Anna's south Indian accent was hard to decipher and comprehend even for adults.

"[30] Raja Sen's two star review for Rediff.com stated "This is a well-animated movie with finely detailed backgrounds, and despite a lack of overall consistency, Roadside Romeo looks nice, bright and shiny enough to ensure kids are drawn to it.

"[31] The film's soundtrack was released on 1 October 2008 by director Jugal Hansraj and actor Jaaved Jaffrey at The Club in Andheri, Mumbai.

Joginder Tuteja from indiaFM gave the film's soundtrack 2 out of 5 stars and noted, "The songs in themselves are no great shakes and, except for a track or two, the remaining just passes muster.