Paramount Pictures has “preemptively” acquired a remake of the 1958 psychological thriller ‘Vertigo’, considered the great masterpiece of Alfred Hitchcock together with ‘Psycho’ and ‘Rebecca’. The plan is for Robert Downey Jr to fill the lead role of James Stewart as the former police detective forced into retirement after a line-of-duty trauma leaves him afraid of heights. and vertigo.
back from the dead
The script will be written by Steven Knight, the creator of the series. ‘See’ and ‘Peaky Blinders’ who also just signed on to write a Star Wars movie. John Davis and John Fox of Davis Entertainment will produce along with Robert and Susan Downey of Team Downey. Paramount was the home of the original film, and the Hitchcock Estate chose the studio as the landing spot for this.
The original screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor based on Boileau-Narcejac’s novel D’entre les morts (Back from the Dead). In it, an acquaintance hires the police detective to follow his wife , after feeling that he is behaving erratically. The movie was the first to use the Dolly Zoom, a device built into the camera that distorts perspective to create disorientation and lead the public to the acrophobic condition of the policeman.
The last Hitchcock classic that has had a remake, after the controversial ‘Psycho’ by Gus Van Sant was ‘Rebeca‘, a colossal attempt by Netflix to modernize the novel with the overrated Ben Wheatley directing. Downey’s team is in charge of ‘Perry Mason’ in the second season of HBO, and the actor will star in ‘The Sympathizer’, directed by Park Chan-wook, for A24 and HBO. Davis Entertainment is run by Harold and the Purple Crayon and Uglies.