Wrapping a fresh slate of submissions (The Long Drift, The Last Offering, and a few others in the chamber) — and it pushed me into a headspace I love:
What deserves a modern, fearless reinterpretation?
What classic still has unexplored teeth?
For me, two giants keep staring back:
1. Lawrence of Arabia — or more accurately, a true, unsoftened adaptation of Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Lean into the political brutality, the fractured identity, the moral ambiguity, and the psychological unraveling that the 1960s couldn’t touch. No romantic haze. No sanding down the edges. Just the raw, mythic, contradictory man at the center of a collapsing empire.
2. The Seventh Seal.
Bergman already carved a masterpiece, but imagine a modern re‑direct that pushes even harder into existential dread, cosmic silence, and the absurdity of faith in a dying world. Same soul, new cinematic language. No fear of going darker.
As a writer‑director who lives in the space between prestige drama, elevated horror, and mythic sci‑fi, these are the kinds of films that shaped me — the ones that dared to stare into the abyss and say something true.
So I’m throwing it to you:
If you could grab the reins on ANY film — “untouchable” classics included — and rewrite it or re‑direct it with your own vision… which one would you choose, and why?
Drop your boldest, most controversial pick.
Let’s stir the pot a little.
Who knows — one of us might actually get to make that dream project sooner than we think.
— Jay Green
Jason Green That’s a great question and honestly, a dangerous one in the best way.
I’d probably take a swing at Taxi Driver, but not to remake it more to reinterpret its core in a modern context.
What fascinates me is how loneliness, alienation, and identity have evolved today. Travis Bickle existed in a very physical, urban isolation but now, that same psychological state can exist even while being constantly “connected.” I’d be interested in exploring that contradiction someone surrounded by digital noise yet internally disconnected.
Not necessarily louder or bigger, but more internal and unsettling in a different way. Less about external decay, more about the quiet fragmentation of identity.
I think those kinds of stories still have a lot of unexplored space, especially when grounded in character.
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I would love to be part of retelling/remaking Lawrence of Arabia - a softened adaptation of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Since reading your post, I've been listening to Seven Pillars of Wisdom on Audible. Have you seen Queen of the Desert? I believe there are many intertwined stories that could share so much more
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John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS.
BRINK!
The first film that came to mind was Sleepy Hollow.
I don't believe there is a genuinely great, true adaptation of the source material. Burton's film and the canceled TV show from a few years ago are the only two I know to have hit the mainstream, but neither is a true adaptation.
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I waited decades to see an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's 'FOUNDATION SERIES'. When it happened, I turned it off - good it may have been but ruined it was. So instead, I would like to adapt the character R DANEEL OLIVAW into his own multi-series - - From THE CAVES OF STEEL; ROBOTS OF DAWN; ROBOTS AND EMPIRE; then FOUNDATION. R Daneel Olivaw is one of the best science fiction characters ever written and his journey is both epic and profound and I love him. He's a humaniform robot by the way - in case you didn't know, and he is a loveable genius.
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For a movie, my remake would be KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS - 1949 - "a vengeful man systematically eliminating his aristocratic relatives to claim a dukedom, featuring Alec Guinness in eight roles" Wiki. It is an absolutely crackingly innocent movie about an extremely polite serial killer, his eccentric victims and iconic female competing main roles. It deserves a remake. using colour and modern technology.
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David Taylor,
Really appreciate both of these — I’ve now got Kind Hearts and Coronets on my watchlist. I somehow missed it, but the way you describe it makes it sound like one of those deceptively “light” films that’s actually doing something razor‑sharp underneath. I love finding those.
And I hear you on Foundation. Some stories — especially the big sci‑fi epics — live in that space where the scale is almost designed for the imagination. Everyone builds their own internal version, and that’s part of the magic. Adaptations can absolutely bring new audiences to the material, but the risk is real: once you visualize something that massive, you’re committing to a single interpretation of a world that was intentionally limitless.
That’s the danger and the responsibility with any remake or reinterpretation. You’re not just updating a story — you’re stepping into a lineage. If you’re going to take that swing, the film has to feel like an extension of you. Not a copy, not a modernization, but a personal vision that can stand beside the original without trying to replace it.
That’s the bar I think about when I imagine re‑directing anything:
Does my version honor the original by being unmistakably mine?
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Shane Nolan Francisco Castro and can anyone revision John Carpenter or Tim Burton? I like it, it’s bold.
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The Last Star Fighter hands down.
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David, like you, I have read the foundation stories. Both those Asimov wrote in the 1940s and those he wrote much later. And I have seen the trailer for the TV series. No thanks. The stories are from the 1940s, so if I was given the opportunity to adapt the stories to the screen, I would take that into account. Minimizing the usage of modern digital special effects.
And I have thought about Chaplin, The Dictator. I watched it at almost the same time as I watched a comedy with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. The odd thing was that I realized that some of the scenes from the latter film could be used to create an updated version of the former film.