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Stephen Frears Set to Remake His 80's British Gangster Film 'The Hit'

by Ethan Anderton
December 14, 2011
Source: Variety

Just last month, High Fidelity director Stephen Frears came on board to direct the adaptation/remake of the Sundance selected documentary The Bengali Detective, and his adaptation of Lay the Favorite with Bruce Willis and Rebecca Hall will hit Sundance in January (stay tuned for our coverage next month). Now Variety has word that Frears is also set for another revamp of an old property with a remake of the 1984 British gangster flick The Hit. The film's original writer Peter Prince is working with Frears on the remake of his own film which takes the action of the UK film, and move it to Mexico and the United States.

Producer Jeremy Thomas says, "The idea is to make it as an American movie about an American gangster, to tell the story against the backdrop of the land of cinema." It doesn't exactly sound ambitious, but the story could make for some fun. The original film follows John Hurt and Tim Roth as hitmen hired by the London mob to kidnap an informer (Terrence Stamp) hidden away in Spain and bring him in for execution in Paris. However, these hitmen aren't exactly the best guys for the job, and their plan goes hilariously awry. Though it sounds generic, with Frears on board, and remaking a film that he originally directed himself, I'm interested to see how this turns out if a cast as good as the original can be assembled.

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