2007’s The Orphanage was a fairly effective horror film (dvd review), but it was one that had the misfortune of being in one of those crazy foreign languages (“You expect me to read SUBTITLES?!?”), so of course it was grabbed right up for a remake.
Fortunately this has the hand of Guillermo del Toro in it as well, even more so than the original, in fact. While he worked as creative supervisor for the original he co-wrote the script for the remake with the almighty Larry Fessenden, who was originally rumored to also direct the flick. For the last three years they’ve been trying to get it off the ground, but now it looks like they might have finally settled on a helmer.
Variety reports that Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies) is in final negotiations to direct the film.The story will be similar to the original, about a woman who takes over an orphanage where she was raised and gets creeped out when her son starts playing with the same imaginary friend that she used to.
No word on a production start just yet, so for now just check out the trailer for the original (the American one, of course- note the lack of any dialogue and overuse of narration) and wonder if they can improve on it.