Remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 'Vertigo' in the works

Robert Downey Jr eyeing the lead role in psychological thriller

Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights to remake Alfred Hitchcock‘s 1958 classic psychological thriller Vertigo. What’s more, Robert Downey Jr is said to be eyeing the lead role. Incidentally, the actor is producing the film with wife Susan Downey through their Team Downey production company. Reportedly, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is set to write the script.

Downey Jr has kept a low profile as an actor since the release of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, one of the highest-grossing movies ever made, and 2020’s Dolittle, which didn’t exactly do great numbers. He produced and appeared in the documentary Sr, about his father, and he will next be seen in Christopher Nolan’s historical epic Oppenheimer. Also starring opposite Cillian Murphy, the movie releases this July.

The original Vertigo starred James Stewart as John Ferguson aka Scottie, a San Francisco police detective who retires due to a paralysing fear of heights brought on by a severe case of vertigo. After he’s hired to tail an acquaintance’s wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), Scottie becomes obsessed with her. However, his fears render him powerless to save her when she climbs the tower of a Spanish Mission and plunges to her death.

Interestingly, Vertigo was not a smashing success when it was first released in theatres, and also earned mixed reviews from the critics. It was only in the 1980s that it started gaining recognition as a masterpiece. In 1982, in a survey of the best movies ever made by the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound publication (conducted every 10 years), Vertigo cracked the top 10, and continued to climb the list, reaching the number one slot in the 2012 survey.

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Filmmakers like Brian De Palma (with Obsession and Body Double), David Lynch (with Mulholland Drive) and Mel Brooks (with High Anxiety) have borrowed inspiration from Vertigo. But no American studio has attempted an outright remake until now.

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