Remakes have become quite a sub-genre on its own. Now the turn for a new version aimed “at the new generations,” as Screen Daily reports, has fallen on The Witches of Eastwick, the (diabolical) comedy released in 1987 and directed by George Miller. However, the great appeal of the original film was based on its cast with three actresses at the peak of their stardom like Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon and Cher, playing dissatisfied housewives who discovered their gift as sorceresses. They were joined by an unleashed Jack Nicholson playing a seductive little devil.
And, who could replace them in a modern remake? There would be candidates, but in the absence of knowing what its new cast would be for the moment, we do have a director. And the chosen one is Swedish filmmaker Ninja Thyberg who in addition to directing has been commissioned to write the screenplay, although it is unknown whether this will be based on the George Miller film or the original novel written by John Updike.
Thyberg’s resume includes mostly shorts since she started behind the camera in 2010, and she made her feature debut this year with Pleasure, which is being shown at various festivals, including Sundance and Karlovy Vary. It tells the story of a 19-year-old Swedish girl who leaves her small hometown and moves to Los Angeles to become a pornstar, but what she will discover there is a darker world than she could have imagined.
The Witches of Eastwick was nominated to two Oscars, for the music composed by John Williams and for best sound, and it won the BAFTA for special effects.
It earned $63.8 million in the US, positioning itself as the eleventh highest-grossing film of that year, behind titles like Dirty Dancing ($64 million) and Lethal Weapon ($65.59 million) in a year dominated by the $167 million of Three Men and a Baby, the Hollywood remake of one of the biggest box office hits in French cinema, or the $156.6 million of Fatal Attraction.
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