The Weinstein Co. is joining forces with Mirage Prods to remake the Oscar-winning German movie "The Lives of Others."
- Mar 2, 2007
AceShowbiz - An acclaimed piece of film feature that really deserves the title of Oscar's Best Foreign Language Film of the Year it took last month, "The Lives of Others" soon will get a remake treatment from U.S. filmmakers.
Variety reported yesterday, March 1 that The Weinstein Company exec Bob and Harvey Weinstein have struck deal to develop an English-language version to the flick with Mirage Productions' Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, who hold the rights to the remake from writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
"We would just desperately love for that film to be something that reaches more people (via remake)," so Pollack said upon commenting on the remake plan. "We haven't gotten locked into making it yet, but we're working hard at trying to get it going."
The feature directorial debut of von Donnersmarck, "Others" centers on a secret agent in 1980s East Germany who wiretaps the apartment of an artistic couple and finds himself sucked into their lives, with tragic consequences. It received a limited release in North America on February 9 through Sony Corp's Sony Pictures Classics and so far has sold $1.3 million worth of tickets.
Apart from the remake production, Weinstein Co. also will set up several big screen titles alongside Mirage following its renewal of the exclusive first-look deal with the studio. Included in the list are "The Reader", "I Don't Know How She Does It", "The Amulet of Samarkand", and "The Ninth Life of Louis Drax". "Reader" has already had director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter David Hare onboard while "Louis Drax" finds Minghella being on duty to both serve as its writer and helmer.
