The Orphanage U.S. Remake Finds a Director
I don’t remember if this was previously announced or not, but it looks like a U.S. remake of Juan Antonio Bayona’s Spanish horror film The Orphanage is moving forward at New Line and they’ve locked in a director: Larry Fessenden. The actor/filmmaker most recently directed the Ron Perlman thriller The Last Winter and an episode of Fear Itself, but he also did the cult classic Wendigo.
We’ve previously discussed the pros and cons of remaking recent foreign films (mostly the cons), but in the case of The Orphanage it seems even more unnecessary considering that the movie ended up getting a pretty decent release in U.S. theatres. A lot of people have already seen it (although I still haven’t) thanks to Guillermo Del Toro’s name being attached as a producer. Apparently he will also produce the remake and co-adapt the script with Fessenden. I wonder if they’ll end up changing the name so as to avoid confusion with the recently released Orphan?
Comments (9)
This is so stupid. It was pretty big in the US already, and it was a great movie. I might see this for free, but I don’t think it’ll be nearly as good.
Posted by bard on August 5th, 2009if it’s as scary and and well done as the first one, then by all means go for it
Posted by rick on August 5th, 2009I liked those Fear Itself shows.
As long as the Marketing team does their job, people should have no problem distinguishing it from The Orphan. The tone of the two movies are very different IMO (the setting is what makes The Orphanage creepy, where as The Orphan seems to be more focused on the orphan kid)
Posted by joe on August 5th, 2009I wish they would please stop making horror movies centered around children.
Kids 4 feet tall and 60 lbs soaking wet aren’t scary or threatening in the least. Where did this fad come from? Japanese horror?
I tried to watch Pet Semetary on TV a while back and couldn’t stop laughing when the little demon child came back from the dead. So I guess that gimmick has been around for a while.
Posted by Damndirtyape on August 5th, 2009Fessenden has a decent resume, so it might stand a chance…
Posted by Wes on August 6th, 2009The Last Winter is a bloody awesome film. This type of remake seems like a pay-check move, and as stated above, this was one of the rare foreign films to actually find a little traction in The US, so why remake it?
Posted by Kurt on August 6th, 2009Well Fessenden and Del Toro are good friends so maybe they have more creative control and a better chance to have it stand on its own.
Posted by Swarez on August 6th, 2009The Last Winter is a bloody awesome film.
No, no it is not.
Posted by Matt Gamble on August 6th, 2009I’m in if Del Toro is involved.
Posted by Ben Jones on August 6th, 2009Leave a Reply