"Peter Jackson to remake "Dam Busters"" Topic

Fromm the BBC:

"Peter Jackson to film Dam Busters

The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is to remake classic British war film The Dam Busters, he has told film industry trade paper Screen Daily. Jackson will produce the movie, with King Kong animator Christian Rivers in the director's chair.

Jackson said it would be "as authentic as possible and as close to the spirit of the original as possible".

The 1954 film told the true story of how Britain developed bouncing bombs to destroy German dams in World War II.

Jackson says he first saw the film as a child and "really loved it". "There's that wonderful mentality of the British during the war – that heads-down, persevering, keep-on-plugging-away mentality which is the spirit of Dam Busters," he told Screen Daily.

Based on a book by Paul Brickhill, the original film starred Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis, who developed the bomb, and Richard Todd as Wing Commander Guy Gibson, who led the RAF bombing mission.

Jackson asked his agent to inquire about the possibility of remaking the film at the same time as he was securing the rights to the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 1990s.

"He came back and said that [film company] Icon had the rights and that Mel Gibson was going to direct and possibly act in it," Jackson said.
"Obviously that didn't happen."

The remake is set to use details of the bombing mission which were still classified at the time the original film was made by director Michael Anderson.

"So much of it was still secret," said Jackson. "They weren't even allowed to show the bomb itself and had to create a fictionalised bomb."

The project is due to start filming next year, with a budget of $30-40m (£16-21m).

Television presenter Sir David Frost will be an executive producer on the movie as he owns the rights to the book.

Jackson's next project as director will be an adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones."

Discuss!

Darn, too slow. Hastati beat me to the punch!

I don't know which of these two will end up as the dominant, alpha-topic, so I'll post my comment from the other one here as well:

"I wish more of his boyhood dreams would revolve around films that hadn't already been made!

The Dam Busters is a GOOD film! Make a WWII epic about something that doesn't already have a good film about it, like St. Nazaire ("The Gift Horse" is only 'okay'), ONS5, Taranto (and the Luftwaffe retaliation against HMS Illustrious) or Outpost Snipe (which is like Zulu, but with Panzers instead of Zulus).

For Pete's sake, quit it with the bloody remakes, will you?"

Couldn't agree more Polynikes

Personally, my uber-fantasy would be to see a film on Operation Crusader focussing on the Sidi Rezegh battles. A boy can dream can't he?

But will Jacskon use the Dambuster's March?

I couldn't agree with Pol more. Why remake GOOD movies?

Of course, one could also ask a theatre company "Why do we need another Hamlet?"

Lets hope he learned his lesson from King Kong and hires a good editor for this film (and listens to said editor on occasion).

Dave

Well, you can never have enough Hamlets, but you only need the one Dambusters.

How about they call it "Dambusters II" and let them loose on the Tirpitz?

If they can't get the Dam Busters March then I've got a tune for 'em:

Who ya gonna call?

DAMBUSTERS!

So what's up with The Hobbit? I thought he was going to do that as well?

How long before someone tries to remake other war films such as the Longest Day etc? Let's not encourage them. Don't think we have enough "big" actors who could ever fill those boots left by the original.

The idea of Mel Gibson nearly re-making it leaves me shuddering. Maybe he never did it because he couldn't work out how to make it anti-British? :-) I think we can guess which part he would have chosen!

Polynikes is right……we do need more original films. Imagine if Peter Jackson had made Flyboys? We'd all definitely be flocking to it in that case.

It was a pretty boring film the first time. Try this type of bomb and then that type, fly into a wall. By the way, wasn't Original Star Wars a remake of this movie?

Who will go to see this film? A chick film? Date film? teeners?

So many other good topics, as noted above, and others for a film. I hope he is reading this thread to know how we all feel!

Agree with CPBelt……….I want him to make "The Hobbit"
The Damnbusters is a great film….hope if he goes ahead he does the original justice and not make a load of unecessary changes.

I look forward to it.

Great choice, now we can have an old classic turned into a 6 hour over-hyped epic with CGI effects coming out of its wazoo, woeful scripting and a nice range of merchandising at McDonalds. Wonder what Mr Jackson will call Gibson's dog in the new version?

Anyway I suppose I should be glad it wasn't Mel, particularly given his recently announced theory that "all wars have been started by the Jews".

Carlos, you beat me to the question I was going to ask.

Yes, it's a good film that doesn't need to be remade, but I think he'll do a good job and it will revive broader public interest in the period.

Looking forwards to it!

PS- I'd love to see remade Star Wars 1I-III, but leave IV-VI well alone!

I understand there are political arguments over the Hobbit, so I guess he is twiddling his thuimbs for a short while :-)

I think Peter Jackson has lost his mind. Perhaps he is under the evil influence of the one ring or something. Why now is he insisting on doing remakes of classics? It's almost a no-win situation, though I imagine King Kong made gobs of cash for the studio.

If he wants to do a WWII film, how about, as Hastati suggests New Zealanders in North Africa, or in the Pacific? Or any one of dozens of WWII topics not already covered, or covered badly. For example, why not redo any WWII movie staring John Wayne? They are all jingoistic and for the most part, bad.

Or maybe he could remake Pearl Harbor. Unconcious he could make a better movie than Bey did.

The last I heard he had the go-ahead to do the Hobbit.

Why couldn't they make a movie about the Air Battle of Berlin or the Ruhr?

I'ld even take a movie based on the SEAC RAF Bomber Group of B24s that tore apart South West Asia. They even acted as pathfinders for the USAAF B29s for a while!

"Mohawks Over Burma", there is a book dying to be made into a film.

"To War in a Stringbag", another book needing to be put on film.

"Enemy Coast Ahead"-Gibsons' career
"Terror in the Starboard Seat"-Mosquito Intruders
"Torpedo Bombers"-Beauforts for everyone

If he wants to do a remake fine, "Malta Story".

Polesti?

How the **** is king kong going to fit in the lancaster?? whilst the hobbits cant reach the triggers on the guns?? That film will bomb.

Polynikes said it all, from where I stand.

First "The Hobbit", then something original, WWII, WWI, colonial don't care, but something that's never been done. Short of that, how about doing a remake of a really poorly done movie, like "Battle of the Bulge"!

How about any historical film that stays true to history and dipicts events that actually happened (are you listening Gibson and the swines that made bl**dy U571 and all the other none acurate 'historical' films, aarrgghh)

cheers

He talks about accuracy – are they going to rename Gibson's dog ?
I have to say I think it'll be good – if only from an effects POV (yeah yeah I know there's more to a film than CGI).
Will it be in B&W ? That'd rock \m/

How about Mr Jackson reading the Flashman novels, fantastic storys for those that way inclined

cheers

I've been hoping for years that someone might make a movie based on Len Deighton's Bomber novel… Great story, both sides represented, more representative of bomber ops and with a not so subtle dig at the English class system thrown in for good measure…Guess that's a no go now

Any historical war film with no yanks in is Ok by me.

Update on Dambusters in today's newspaper:

link

At the end of the article, PJ denies that he is (currently) involved with a Hobbit project.

He has just been around here at Strike looking at Bomber Harris's Office. Funnily enough he's getting a bit upset with everyone he meets telling him to leave the Dogs name alone and stick to the historical one.
Mind you for the corporate crowd, its going to be a hard film to product place in….