It would seem that someone (Senior Executive VP Carolyn Blackwood) at New Line watched the excellent Housebound and saw dollar signs. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Peter Jackson alerted her to the existence of this little Kiwi gem, and now she wants it remade.
I get it, New Line. I do. Housebound is a good little movie. It’s smart, funny, tightly directed and edited, and well acted. Sure, it may not have the gloss of a higher budget American production, but as a concept, it’s so well suited to its lower budget and diminished scale that most of us who saw it just didn’t care that lacked that yankee luster.
So I’m suspicious of what you intend for this lovely little concept, New Line. I know that the original film’s writer/director Gerard Johnstone will act as a producer on this remake project, but can you preserve or at least translate his brand of Kiwi comedy to US audiences? Will the remake be a straight horror? Will it be PG-13? I suspect it will be, because straight PG-13 horror does pretty well. Fuck, even Ouija is getting a sequel.
We’ll keep you posted on this, but in the meantime, go watch Housebound if you haven’t already.