Steven Zaillian Wants To Direct The Remake Of ‘Timecrimes’
It doesn’t feel like the last time we reported on a US remake ofTimeCrimeswas almost a year ago. But it was back in January thatSteven Zaillianwasreportedas the screenwriter responsible for the roadmap for the remake ofNacho Vigalondo’s fan-favorite time-travel thriller.
He was working from a previous draft fromTim Sexton, and Zaillian was producing as well. Rumors that David Cronenbergmight directhad been scuttled, and at the time we didn’t know who might direct the remake. Now, while doing the press rounds forThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which Zaillian wrote, he says that he’d like to direct theTimeCrimesremake.
Speaking toComingSoon, Zaillian said,
[Timecrimes is] something I might direct but I don’t know. We have to cast it, but it’s a tricky one, because I want to make it really low budget. I don’t want to do a really big budgeted film for that. I think part of its appeal is that it’s kind of a low budget thriller, but it’s even hard to get that made without a major actor, so the trick is to find the right actor that doesn’t suddenly push the budget up into the 20s or 30s.
I’d like to make it for 10 million bucks. You look at it and it’s one of the rare opportunities where you have four characters, two locations, why do you need to spend $40 million dollars? This is a gift, this is a story that you wouldn’t want to tell any differently, and it happens to be an economical way to go.
I know there is a fan contingent that isn’t happy about the idea of a remake, but that quote gives me hope that he’s trying to approach the movie in a way that will keep the story intact. But if the remake is going to be that faithful, then why bother right? We can go around and around with that set of questions forever.
Zaillian’s last directorial effort was the 2006 version ofAll the President’s Men, but before that his last movie wasA Civil Action, in 1998. In between he followed hisSchindler’s Listwriting success with scripts forHannibal,Gangs of New York,American Gangsterand more.
