The announcement that The Birds was being remade by Platinum Dunes was met with deserved derision. Yeah, it’s not Hitchcock’s best film, but it’s one of his best known films, and it’s one of the best examples of how that fat dude could elevate the most B-level material into something more interesting. The idea that Michael Bay might direct only added to the level of incredulity – would he have the birds blowing up or something?
Producer Brad Fuller assures IGN FilmForce that their new version of The Birds couldn’t really be called a remake of the Hitchcock film: "We’re not remaking Hitchcock’s movie. That movie stands on its own and it is a wonderful piece of filmmaking. It’s a very difficult thing to say, ‘We’re remaking a Hitchcock film,’" Fuller said. "What was interesting to us was that the short story [by Daphne Du Maurier] the Hitchcock film was based on was chock full of stuff that Hitchcock didn’t use in his film. And so we went to those things and that’s the basis of our film. It’s the same title because it’s based on the same short story but we don’t have characters like what they have. The concept of birds, certainly, that’s the core of the movie but the situations and the plot come from the short story not from the Hitchcock film."
Among the characters that won’t be in the film will be one like Tippi Hendren played in the original – rather than be about a woman, this version will focus on a family. There will be a strong female lead, though, Fuller says. Apparently that’s a Platinum Dunes hallmark.
As for Bay directing: don’t count on it. Fuller says that the explodomaestro will be too busy with a weirdly serious looking Transformers movie. There is no director attached right now, but the script is being written by the same cretins who wrote Boogeyman (who also are writing the next film from Alexandre Aja, which means the guy may not ever make a film with a good script).