“Kill List” and “Free Fire” director Ben Wheatley is tackling a hell of a challenge with his new film “Rebecca”. Like the Alfred Hitchcock-directed Best Picture Oscar winner in 1940, this film will also be based on the famed 1938 novel by Daphne du Maurier.
The original book follows an American woman who marries widower Maximillian de Winter after a whirlwind romance, and moves into his rambling mansion named Manderley. Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, was profoundly devoted to Max’s first wife Rebecca and continuously psychologically undermines her ‘replacement’. At the same time divers discover the remains of Rebecca’s boat and the truth about her relationship with Max and her death begin to emerge.
While comparisons will inevitably be made between Wheatley and Hitchcock’s films, Wheatley tells Empire that he has no interest in remaking Hitchcock’s classic. In fact he made sure to see all the screen adaptations of the story that had been made in order to do something different:
“It’s not, in any sense, a remake of the Hitchcock film, firmly not. Remaking a film is not that interesting to me, but the original source material is. I watched all the adaptations. It’s important to see what’s gone before, but that’s certainly not the focus.
I wanted to make something that had more love in it. It’s part of trying to investigate other parts of being human. Rebecca has dark elements, and it has a psychological, haunting story within it, but it’s also about these two people in love. That was the main thing.”
With the original regarded as one of Hitchcock’s best films, the new one has big shoes to fill. Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Tom Goodman-Hill, Keeley Hawes, Sam Riley, and Ann Dowd co-star in the film which is set to be released by Netflix on October 21st.