Remaking the classics of Alfred Hitchcock is usually a foolish errand, but Paramount and Robert Downey Jr. are going to give it a go. Deadline reports that a Vertigo remake is in the works at Paramount with Downey producing and possibly starring.
The original 1958 film starred James Stewart as a traumatized ex-cop with a fear of heights and suffering from vertigo who is drawn into a shady plot involving a friend’s wife. Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac’s novel D’entre Les Morts is the source material that Hitchcock’s film was adapted from.
The Hitchcock estate wanted this new Vertigo to be at Paramount, since that is where the original was housed.
Interestingly, the script will be by Steven Knight, the Locke and Eastern Promises writer who also just agreed to pen a new Star Wars movie. He’s got more than enough experience in the thriller realm, including the excellent Dirty Pretty Things and not-so-excellent The Girl in the Spider’s Web and Serenity. He’s a prolific writer and filmmaker who has tackled just about everything under the sun. I would say that his ceiling is extremely high, but his lows are in the damn basement. It’s unclear if Knight will update the story for modern context, but presumably he will. Don’t they have drugs to treat vertigo now? Maybe the twist is that he swallows some pills and is good to go?
