'The Orphanage' Remake Adopts a Director

Oh, to be a fanboy confronted with this news. You hate it because it's an English-language remake of a pretty good Spanish film, Juan Antonio Bayona's The Orphanage, but you love it because it has Guillermo del Toro's name attached somewhere. What to do, what to do? GdT is producing the remake, just as he did the original, so if you're going to blame anyone, it's pretty much got to be him. I'm not saying you should blame anyone, because I think remakes are fine in theory. Some are great, some are awful. New Line (working this one Warner Bros.) and del Toro, along with ContraFilm, have picked Mark Pellington to direct the remake, and he's got a diverse resume, although he hasn't exactly made a good film just yet. He's made a bunch of good music videos, but Arlington Road, Henry Poole is Here, The Mothman Prophecies...none of them quite get over the hump. The U2 documentary he made is, of course, closer to his roots, so that makes me wonder about what drew the producers to him for The Orphanage. The original, if you haven't seen it, is what we'd call a psychological thriller, if we wanted to put it in a category. I fear, by the way, that's what they'll reduce the remake to, cutting out some of the darker, more internal elements. You guessed right, by the way: It's a story of a woman who returns to her childhood orphanage in hopes of renovating it, after years of being one of those ramshackle buildings you only see in the movies. And then weird stuff starts happening. Perhaps there's a clue in The Mothman Prophecies - which was at least good where the creepy elements were concerned - in why Pellington got the job. It's still a bit of a head-scratcher as to why del Toro, who by all accounts is one of the most inventive guys in the business right now, wants to remake something rather than start from scratch, but I'll give it a shot.

Comments

[mdamien13]

I don't know about "psychological thriller"... I'd argue that the original is the definition of a "horror" film, and IMO it's the best horror film made in the 00's. Sad that a lot of people missed it 'cause they refuse to read subtitles. Still curious to see what the remake brings to the table since it was written by Guillermo Del Toro and Larry Fessenden (who I'm a fan of), but this director's resume doesn't indicate that they have what it takes to capture the atmosphere and dread of the original.