David Fincher, Gillian Flynn and Ben Affleck Are Remaking Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train

As a rule, the works of great directors like Alfred Hitchcock ought not be touched. But if there is anyone who could potentially pull of a solid Hitchcock remake, it’s the team behind Gone Girl.

David Fincher, Ben Affleck and Gillian Flynn are teaming up to remake the Master of Suspense’s Strangers on a Train for Warner Bros., according to The Hollywood Reporter. The original 1951 film was a Hitchcock adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel that followed a tennis star (played by Farley Granger) who meets a charming psychopath. Affleck would take on Granger’s role with Fincher directing and Flynn penning the script.

Strangers (as the working project has been dubbed) is the third collaboration for Fincher and Flynn. After Flynn adapted her own novel Gone Girl for a Fincher-directed film starring Affleck, the writer and director teamed up again for the upcoming HBO show Utopia. So far it seems to be a match made in heaven: Gone Girl earned a whopping $365.3 million worldwide, Fincher’s highest-grossing film to date.

Still, Hitchcock had a very specific, eerie style and remakes of his films have not fared too well in the past. Remember that 1998 version of Psycho? Vince Vaughn and Gus Van Sant probably wish you didn’t. Flynn and Fincher’s take on Hitchcock will almost certainly prove better than Michael Bay’s upcoming remake of The Birds.

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[THR]