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Another New John Hillcoat Project? Le Cercle Rouge Remake

by Alex Billington
May 31, 2010
Source: The Playlist

The Road director John Hillcoat has been in the news quite a bit recently. Last week we covered the news that Hillcoat would be directing a film called The Revenant next. He's also attached to a few other project, as revealed in a recent interview with NY Mag, but it was The Playlist who put two and two together and linked a Production Weekly listing for a remake of Jean-Pierre Melville's classic 1970 neo-noir Le Cercle Rouge (which translates to The Red Circle) to Hillcoat's statements about being attached to "another contemporary thriller, crime thriller, set in Hong Kong and Macao." Well, we can add another project to Hillcoat's line-up.

According to Prod Weekly, an offer is out to Hillcoat to direct The Red Circle remake and it sounds like he's accepted. I guess the locations have changed in the remake in Steve Knight's script, because Le Cercle Rouge is a heist film that takes place in Paris. This remake has been gestating for a while, one time with John Woo directing, then with Johnnie To, who even had Liam Neeson, Chow Yun-Fat, Orlando Bloom and Tim Roth attached to star. Obviously people move on from projects and it sounds like Le Cercle Rouge has ended up in Hillcoat's hands and it's something he'll direct down the line after The Revenant or whatever he does next.

For those unfamiliar with Melville's Le Cercle Rouge, the film is about an aristocratic thief who is released from prison the same day a murderer has escaped the custody of a police superintendent. The thief ends up robbing his mob boss and enlisting the help of the murderer and an ex-police sharpshooter for a jewel heist. Meanwhile, the mob boss persuades a nightclub owner and a pimp to help him trap the thieves, while the police officer is also looking to apprehend the convict. Sounds like a great, twisted heist film and I'd love to see a talented up-and-coming director like Hillcoat tackle this. We'll keep you updated on anything we hear.

Filed under Indies, Movie News, Opinions

From around the web:

Cracky

God damn it.
Loser

Sounds cool a bit sad that Johnnie To never made it with his cast would have been awesome but Hillcoat will do great
Kevin

Hmmm... I don't know how I feel about this. Le Cercle Rouge is one of my favorite movies, but it's old and obscure enough that an American remake could be kind of cool and would bring much deserved attention to this classic film.