Robert Downey Jr to remake “Vertigo”

Note to Hollywood: Heaven forbid you should make something original

Kim Kardashian will replace Kim Novak, who herself will have a cameo as the bell-ringing nun.

God have mercy on us all.

R1 My thoughts, exactly. It's certainly not going to be better than the original, why bother.

WHY?

Ugh!

Remaking a legendary classic film by Alfred Hitchcock.

What could possibly go wrong?

I love RDJ and I'm happy to see him move on from comic book films or move back to real movies again or whatever. This is not the way to do it. This is a very bad idea.

In my dreams I wish Kenneth Branagh would have done it.

If DL had its way, nothing would ever be made and we would watch nothing but Golden Girls reruns. The Spielberg West Side Story remake was good. The Cooper remake of a Star is Born was good. Maybe we should wait until a thing actually exists before we demand it’s abortion like a bunch of foaming at the mouth Republicans.

Because it worked out so well when they remade Psycho with Vince Vaughn and Anne He He.

There are zillions of interesting stories to be told, why can't Hollywood do something original?

I'm sure this will interest me just as much as his Iron Man appearances have.

If they insist on doing re-makes they need to stay away from great classic films. Going toe to toe with Alfred Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart is a recipe for losing.

Blah, blah. More insipid “standards” from risk-adverse DLers who have never created anything.

HORRIBLE idea. Was nothing learned from the Psycho remake?

How many of you HATED

EEAAO?

You’re asking people who post literally hundreds of replies on a thread about the opening credits of Three’s Company.

And haven't some people come out recently and called the original sexist? It doesn't seem like a good idea at all.

Maybe they are going to gender swap the roles and Laverne Cox is playing Scotty.

If you're not going to do it with Liza, don't do it at all.

[quote] Steven Knight To Write Script

Judging by his previous effort he will demand that a Jamaican woman will play the Kim Novak role

I don't like the scriptwriter nor the haggard-looking star.

But the confusing, ambiguous story about the twin-women could be fleshed out.

But this remake NEEDS the Bernard Hermann score to be halfway as interesting as the original.

Hollywood has been remaking movies since the 1930’s when they remade silent movies into talkies.

There’s nothing wrong with retelling good stories. Stories have to be reinterpreted and adapted into contemporary settings for newer audiences.

True r21, but the problem is they always want to remake the ones that were done right the first time. (In fairness, there are the perennials like a Star is Born, but still...) What they really should do is dig out a near-miss and try to do it right this time around.

WHO is today’s Barbara Bel Geddes?

Viola Davis is today’s Barbara Bel Geddes.

Laverne Cox will play Madeline/Judy.

Sam Smith will play the Barbara Bel Geddes role of Midge.

R22 That were liked?

I mean I just imagine Hollywood stories going on the same way plays have. No one rolls their eyes when “Medea” goes for its millionth run over the last 2,500 years.

So let Downey prove he has no box office appeal unless his fake heart is aglow with sarcasm.

[quote] “Medea” … its millionth run.

You are too generous.

Agree R21. Nothing's inherently wrong with doing a remake, IMO. However, Vertigo is just bad from the start. The whole plot about some dumbo who thinks his dead wife has come back to life.

So many film makers reference "Vertigo". How can one not be influenced by it? However, I don't have much desire to see an on the nose "remake". Seems rather basic. if that would be the case. David Lynch's "Lost Highway" has elements of "Vertigo" and I appreciate and enjoy seeing the seeds of inspiration and the Hitchcock original's effect on other film makers. "Eo" was a fantastic watch this year and certainly influenced by Bresson's masterpiece "Au Hasard Balthazar" but a totally new take on elements of it by Jerzy Skolimowski. Sounds more like an idea pitched in a corporate meeting than a passion project. Who knows?

It's a weird film to remake because the actual murder plot doesn't make very much sense. How did the coroner never discover that the real Madeline was completely drugged up when she was thrown from the rooftop? (That would not have accorded at all with Scottie's story of her suicide.) How did Gavin Elstir ever get down the stairs of the tower after everyone had gathered to see the real Madeline's corpse below it? Why would Judy have been sentimental about keeping the Carlotta Valdez necklace, which would have almost certainly reminded her more of Elstir (who betrayed her and discarded her) and his scheme than of Scottie?

Psssst r31

The second half of Vertigo is catatonic Scotty’s dream

The second part of the story is confusing. And Hitchcock made two versions of it.

They already remade Vertigo during the Ciji / Cathy Geary storyline on Knots Landing…is Lisa Hartman available?

[quote] Remaking a legendary classic film by Alfred Hitchcock.

Not just that, but remaking what many consider the best Hitchcock and the best film ever made. Why, God, why?

Part of the reason this is so offensive to many people (at least those with a knowledge of show business) is that Steven Knight is an absolutely prodigious shit-factory, not seen since the likes of Akiva Goldsman in the 90s. In the millisecond that Warner Bros. was considering a new Superman film with Henry Cavill, Knight even shat out a treatment for that (it was apparently not good.) He just shits scripts after coffee. So there’s no pretense of thoughtful people doing this, just vain and egocentric show biz parasites shitting on a beloved classic.

The source material is way darker than the movie. Vertigo was adapted from the French novel “D'entre les morts.”

Basically, in the book, when the Jimmy Stewart character realizes Judy plotted together with Madeleine’s husband, that the two of them were having an affair…and—most importantly—that he had never met the real Madeleine, he strangles Judy and turns himself in. Very French. That would be more interesting.

[quote] Steven Knight is an absolutely prodigious shit-factory

Steven Knight is this year's fad and next year's embarrassment.

Another reason this is so offensive is that filmmakers have been remaking Vertigo for fifty years. Brian de Palma did it twice! But no one had the lack of shame to do an outright remake, name and rights and all. This was wildly unnecessary and simply done to piss off people.

Agree this is not needed. Hitchcock was an auteur, I think it's mildly disrespectful to redo their work. Will someone try to remake "Pulp Fiction" in 30 years?

How dare they!

[quote]The second half of Vertigo is catatonic Scotty’s dream

That's one interpretation of it that is by no means standard, and is neither a convincing nor a very interesting one.

I only appreciated seeing this movie while I watched on the big screen.

I adored the music and was fascinated by the PIRANDELLO aspects to the characters.

(unfortunately I think the 2 main actors are hopeless)

[quote]Kim Novak, who herself will have a cameo as the bell-ringing nun.

I would prefer Kim Novak in the Grandma Walton role.

Well, there's...

Psycho (1960) and Psycho (1998)

Strangers on a Train and Once You Meet a Stranger

Rear Window (1954) and Rear Window (1998)

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Shadow of a Doubt (1991)

Rebecca (1940) and Rebecca (2021)

The Lady Vanishes (1938) and The Lady Vanishes (1979)

...and we all know how that went.

R37, I thought the movie was based on Sueurs Froides.

[quote] Sueurs Froides

Frigid sisters?

Has Kim Novak reported another rape yet?

DL Faves Charlotte Kirk as Judy (she can relate) and Melissa Beth Miller as Midge.

I'm available!

R29 That’s not it at all but bless your heart for trying.

[quote]the Jimmy Stewart character realizes Judy plotted together with Madeleine’s husband, that the two of them were having an affair…and—most importantly—that he had never met the real Madeleine, he strangles Judy

That makes sense in the movie as well. Why did Scott drag Judy to the tower if not to throw her out one of the windows, to die like Madeline supposedly died? Instead, a never before seen nun suddenly scares into jumping. I understood the whole nun thing - but it works as a substitute for an unpalatable ending.

I took the message to be *nuns kill*.

Albert Hitchcock was a genius. His films cannot be remade; every attempt was a disaster.

R54 OH DEAR!

R45, there was another remake of Shadow Of A Doubt made in 1958 called Step Down To Terror, with Charles Drake in the Joseph Cotten role.

R39, I know De Palma's Obsession is a quasi-remake of Vertigo (and not a good one either). What was the other?

The thing with Hitchcock is his movies were, for how much fun they are, still extremely personal and awash in shit his weird fucked up fat ass was obsessed with. And none more than Vertigo, which doesn’t have to make logical sense — it’s a tour through that man’s neuroses. Remaking it isn’t the same as restaging Hamlet., which was written with the intention of being retold by different people in different form, as all theater is. Hitchcock was barfing out his subconscious feelings into a nonsense plot and that weirdness, particular to that man, is what made any of it memorable

[quote] The thing with Hitchcock is his movies are awash in shit his weird fucked up fat ass

Oh dear. I'll quote this in my EFL Class tonight.

It’s show business not show art. If they think they can make a dollar (which is debatable given previous Hitchcock remakes) they’ll do it. That’s the movies. Sure sometimes something deeper manages to get through the system but it’s rare. It’s just about dollars and that’s not new. Shrug.

I feel like “Frenzy” would be a worthy remake.

I don’t feel like it’s an untouchable classic of his and it’s a remake that could actually be a hit.

[quote] “Frenzy”

It was so tawdry.

One reason being he couldn't get the stars he wanted.

I'm not sure he needed the stars he couldn't get: the cast was convincingly tawdry and good, as required.

He wanted Michael Caine instead of Barry Foster (but I personally think Caine is as tawdry as Foster).

I heard there was talk of one actor playing a double role; Foster and Ian Finch.

R7 Why?

Fuck off. Make your own movies. Stop stealing mine.

Just because you've inherited the rights does not make it yours. Have some respect. If we didn't make movies, you wouldn't have a job

R46

No, it was D'entre les morts. Sueurs froides (Cold sweat) is the title sometimes given to the film Vertigo in French.

R60

Right. Remake a film with a scene in which a woman being raped and murdered is made to look humorous. It was offensive when Frenzy came out.

R59

Speaking only in terms of dollars, I don't think a film about a damaged older man who dominates and remakes a young woman to conform to his necrophiliac fantasy* is going to be very popular.

*Hitchcock said it was about a man who wanted to sleep with a dead woman. He demanded that Coit Tower be visible in the scenes from Scottie's apartment because it was a phallic symbol.

R53

The Vertigo allusion at the start of Psycho III is hilarious and very "nuns kill."

R52

I read it as Scottie wanting to confront her with what she'd done, not that he necessarily planned to kill her. The nun popping up always seemed contrived to me and Madeleine's death was shocking but funny.

R29

Ask for a refund on your copy of CliffsNotes.

R66, it looks like it's been published under both titles. From WIkipedia:

[quote]The novel was originally published in France as D’entre les morts in 1954. After the release of Hitchcock’s film adaptation in 1958, all subsequent French editions were retitled Sueurs froides ('Cold Sweat') to match the French release title of the film.

Who's directing it

Vertigo

a film by McG

starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow

I can't wait.

R72

No, the book it was based on, which is what you wrote, was "D'Entre les morts." According to your post, it was only after the film that it was retitled.

Except this time it’s accurately titled “Agoraphobia”.

Remake the greatest film of a great director with iconic stars forever known for these roles? Sure, why not? Is Downey back on drugs?