Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rebecca' Being Remade

[Walts Ghost]

DreamWorks To Remake Alfred Hitchcock’s Only Best Picture Winner: ‘Rebecca’

Alfred Hitchcock‘s filmography reads like an all-time best of list: Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Notorious, The Birds, it goes on and on. But out of all of Hitchcock’s movies, only one received the Academy Award for Best Picture: 1940′s Rebecca. Hitchcock’s first American project, Rebecca featured Laurence Olivier as a widower whose new wife (Joan Fontaine) is overwhelmed by the spirit of his late wife, the title character. It was based on a 1938 book of the same name by Daphne du Maurier.

Now, DreamWorks and Working Title are planning to go back to the source material and remake the story with Steven Knight, who wrote Eastern Promises for David Cronenberg, hired to write the screenplay.

Variety broke the news of this deal, which almost make sense in a weird kind of way.

Hitchcock’s movies have, for the most part, been handled with kid gloves when it comes to remakes. Yes some of his lesser works got remade or reimagined, TV adapted a few here and there and even Gus Van Sant did Psycho but, for the most part, the true greats have been left untouched. Rebecca is certainly one of Hitchcock’s great films but, even with the Oscar win, is still kind of underrated. If you were a studio executive looking not to piss off film fans but also find a great, relatively unknown piece of art to rip off, Rebecca would be at the top of the list.

All that said, just go rent the original because it’s really fantastic.

Can you live with a film like Rebecca being remade? What about Knight – who also just adapted the Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol – as the screenwriter?

Source

[Snicket]

No thank you.

[Clark Kent]

Hollywood really has become creatively bankrupt for new ideas.

[MykeHavoc]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

Hollywood really has become creatively bankrupt for new ideas.

That's by choice. I'm sure there's no shortage of scripts floating around.

[octagon]

This is a really weird coincidence.

I just watched the BD (which is great, btw) a few night ago and thought if any classic was remake or revision fodder it might be this one.

Fair Warning: the spoiler below is fairly specific

[Show spoiler]I've never really cared for the way they weaseled around the question of whether Max killed his first wife. It felt like a copout the first time I saw it and as much as I've come to like the film over the years it feels like a copout now. It really does gut much of the story's depth. The later reveal in the doctor's office is rendered largely meaningless in the 'slip and fall' version.

I tend to be something of a purist but I was thinking a few days before watching the BD that if (completely hypothetical) 'lost footage' should ever show up featuring a different cut of that cottage scene I would gladly - no, eagerly - abandon my 'don't tamper' rule and watch a version in which that scene went differently.

So yeah, I find this kind of intriguing.

[EricJ]

It's, um, technically not "Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca", it's "Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca".

Like, y'know, a book. Kinda thought the article would mention that, maybe once.

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by EricJ

It's, um, technically not "Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca", it's "Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca".

Like, y'know, a book. Kinda thought the article would mention that, maybe once.

Yes, but because of the success of the Hitchcock film, old Alfie now has created Rebecca. It's the same with The Birds. Either way, it's going to be horrid if anyone remembers the Psycho remake.

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by MykeHavoc

That's by choice. I'm sure there's no shortage of scripts floating around.

Are there though? If so, whats the problem? Why cant they be made then? Whats going on? Two extremes: They are either remaking classics that dont need it OR they are making movies out of focking board games.

Thats all they got.

Geezus.

[Blu Ian]

As long as they don't remake Birds I'm happy.

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by Strafer

As long as they don't remake Birds I'm happy.

Another DuMaurier penned story. Hitchcock admittedly changed some stuff, but The Birds and Rebecca are still Daphne DuMaurier, and not Hitchcock.

[Falconer]

Originally Posted by s2mikey

Are there though? If so, whats the problem? Why cant they be made then? Whats going on? Two extremes: They are either remaking classics that dont need it OR they are making movies out of focking board games.

Yes, there really are. But they have no built-in audience in the way that remakes and adaptations do.

Hollywood is afraid to take a gamble for fear that they will lose money. This is understandable, seeing as how they often take a perfectly good spec script and rewrite it for who knows what reasons, and in turn, ruin what made it good to begin with.

Source Code was an EXCELLENT script. It was rewritten and became a pretty good movie. Why did this happen? Who knows. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians, I say. Everyone wants their hand in the pot, because that's the only way they can exercise their power.