A ‘Princess Bride’ Remake Has Reportedly Been Discussed, And People (Like Jamie Lee Curtis) Aren’t Happy

Hollywood has always been into remakes and reboots; they’re easier and safer than original ideas! The public doesn’t always go for them, but sometimes even they decide some things are too sacred. A threatened Back to the Future redo wasn’t well-received, including by the person who owns the rights (which he won’t sell). And now the mere mention of unnamed famous people discussing a remake of The Princess Bride — a detail buried in a lengthy Variety piece on television pioneer Norman Lear, one of the film’s executive producers — has been met with swift push-back.

This should be stressed: There is no official Princess Bride remake — yet. The prospect is only mentioned once: As per Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra simply says, “Very famous people whose names I won’t use, but they want to redo The Princess Bride.”

But that was enough to sound alarms. One possible reason: The 1987 original is still aggressively watched. The comical fantasy — adapted from a novel by Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman, by Goldman himself — wasn’t a box office sensation, merely doubling its modest budget. It became one of those films that takes off on home video and television airings, like The Shawshank Redemption, Idiocracy, as well as The Wizard of Oz and It’s a Wonderful Life. Perhaps its absurdist humor, comical digressions, and charmingly lo-fi effects play better on a small screen.

Whatever the reason, simply the whiff of the notion of the concept of the idea of a Princess Bride 2.0 was enough to inspire rage — including from the wife of one of its stars.

https://twitter.com/jamieleecurtis/status/1173980868009840640

Others not married to Christopher Guest were also livid.

https://twitter.com/mrfeelswildride/status/1174074132276772865

https://twitter.com/WitekAlex/status/1174089329674788864

https://twitter.com/allitemplebooks/status/1174089322716438529

https://twitter.com/SarahSahim/status/1174049880815349761

Will this ever lead anywhere? Who knows? Perhaps others won’t be happy to read the rest of the Variety and discover there’s talk of reboots of Lear’s shows. Anyone else steaming over the possibility of a modern redo of his ahead-of-its-and-even-our-time soap opera parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, or even its fake late show spin-off Fernwood 2 Night?

(Via Variety)