I always thought that, outside of the purely commercial reasons of having an already built in audience, the idea of remaking a film was to find a different way of telling its story. If so, no one has bothered to tell that to Eli Roth as it is being announced today that the director is executive producing a remake of his debut feature Cabin Fever which will utilize his original screenplay from the 2002 film.
The project started shooting in this week in Portland, Oregon with Intruder‘s Travis Zariwny directing.
In a statement, Roth said –
Travis had an amazing vision for my original script, and as a scary movie fan I really wanted to see it. I almost see this like re-staging a play, and I’m excited to see what ideas Travis and the cast bring to it. They’re all fans of the original and want to make a film that’s a new classic and I believe they will.
When it first premiered at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, Roth’s story of some college students who find themselves attacked by a flesh-eating virus while partying at a secluded cabin for the weekend set off a bidding frenzy which was won by Lions Gate. Fun fact – Roth wrote his early drafts of the screenplay while a production assistant on the 1997 Howard Stern comedy Private Parts.
The new version’s cast will include Gage Golightly (Teen Wolf), Dustin Ingram (Paranormal Activity 3), Samuel Davis (From Dusk Till Dawn), Matthew Daddario (Delivery Man) and Nadine Crocker (Deadgirl).
This isn’t the first time a film’s screenplay was used directed for a remake. In 1998, director Gus Van Sant remade Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho with the original screenplay by Joseph Stefano. It did not fare well with the critics. Perhaps Roth, Zariwny and company will have better luck.
