Frances Dee, perhaps reconsidering her decision to go for a walk with zombie Christine Gordon.
ComingSoon reports that director Andy Fickman (“Race to Witch Mountain”) is developing remakes of four movies from the RKO Studios vault. First up is the 1943 classic “I Walked With a Zombie,” a zombie-added take on “Jane Eyre,” set in Haiti. It was produced by the legendary Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur; the pair are most famous for their 1942 movie “Cat People.” The remake will be directed by the not at all legendary Adam Marcus, most famous for 1993′s “Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday,” which is kind of like not being famous at all.
Which he isn’t–I just checked IMDb and he only has two other credits, 1999′s “Snow Days” and 2008′s “Conspiracy.” Congratulations if you’ve seen either of these, and sorry, we can’t count you, Adam’s Mom.
Thanks, Mr. Fickman, for really going out and choosing a director who’s shown evidence of being able to do justice to the creepiness of Lewton’s original (though my favorite Lewton film is actually “Curse of the Cat People”). I don’t love the idea of a remake because I’m sure it will replace atmosphere with gore, and that kind of misses the point of horror movies. But if you’re going to go to the effort of remaking a classic, couldn’t you pick someone who has made something good to direct it? Nothing personal, Mr. Marcus, but when I see nine year gaps between films, I’ve got to wonder a little.
RKO’s most famous films are the Astaire-Rogers movies. Good heavens, please tell me they’re not amongst the others on the Fickman Remake Hit List.
