For Brian De Palma fanatics, it's been an agonizingly long wait for another sexy, stylish spellbinder. His last feature was 2007 incendiary "Redacted," which was a noble failure, but a failure just the same. Honestly, we can only watch our Criterion "Blow Out" Blu-rays so many times. Thankfully, word comes down from Anne Thompson that his new movie, "Passion," a loose remake of the recent French thriller "Love Crime," has picked up a cast member and set a date for principle photography.
Rachel McAdams is close to joining her "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" costar Noomi Rapace in the film, which is set to start principle photography March 5th in Berlin. Two of the original "Love Crime" participants are back for the remake – producer Ben Said Ben and SBS Productions. The movie is budgeted at a tiny $20 million (is this really the kind of money one of this country's greatest living directors can muster?) and instead of being about an older woman who takes revenge on her protege, this one is about a woman who, according to Thompson, "turns murderess when her boss steals her idea." Me-ouch!
This will now take precidence over the already-announced "The Key Man," written by "All You Need Is Kill" scribe Joby Harold, which was about a single father who discovers the key to national secrets is hidden within his body. That project, for QED Productions, was supposed to start at the end of the year. The Thompson report says that De Palma had been prepping "Key Man" but will move over to "Passion" immediately. Guess this is why you develop multiple projects at once.
Not only does "Passion" seem like a more exciting project because it fits more snugly in the erotic suspense wheelhouse (and, honestly, "Key Man's" concept sounds kind of dopey), but it's also a movie that De Palma will write and direct. Almost all of his certifiable masterpieces were written and directed by De Palma – "Phantom of the Paradise," "Body Double," "Dressed to Kill," "Blow Out." The Thompson report offers a quote that De Palma gave a reporter about the "Passion" project, saying, "Not since 'Dressed to Kill' have I been able to combine eroticism, suspense, mystery, and murder into one spell-binding experience. I can't wait." Neither can we, Brian, neither can we.
McAdams, Rapace and De Palma? Yes, please!
Having said that, I do hope De Palma gets some help on the script. There possibly isn't a bigger fan of his work than me out there, but it's clear to all that so many of his films post-Blow Out have been marred by some very, very silly screenplays. Even when he hasn't been the sole writer (The Black Dahlia, anyone? Snake Eyes?). Please, Brian, do your next film and your legacy a favor and get a good script together. You've got the directorial skills and you haven't lost them, but you need better writing! Otherwise, preemptive comparisons to Dressed to Kill are meaningless (I seem to remember he made a similar comment re: Femme Fatale).
Anne Thompson's description of the plot isn't that much different than how the French version was. If I remember right, things got deadly when Kristin Scott Thomas started stealing the ideas of her younger assistant.
Having seen the French version, here's to hope tha BdP can really bring something extra to the material- the original one is atrocious
When this was first announced last year Theirry Arbogast was attached as DoP, hopefully he is still onboard as his work on Femme Fatale (not to mention Bessons Leon and Nikita) was really stylish and beautiful.
@jimmiescoffee: I guess you've never seen The Untouchables, Casualties of War and Carlito's Way then.
de palma is good. but he's made a fuckin ton of awful films. post 1985 he hasn't done anything besides the underrated 'mission impossible' and 'femme fatale.'
LOVE IT! Been too long. Welcome back, BDP.
Guys, in a world where Adam Sandler comedies cost $80 million (budget for "Jack & Jill") yes, $20 million is "tiny."
AWESOME NEWS!
its good to know the folks at the playlist consider 20 MILLION chump change…
Well, to be fair, it is "tiny" relative to what most Hollywood features cost today, and that's clearly the context of the article. For me, yeah, 20 million dollars would be a lot of money. But if I had to make a feature with it starring Rachel McAdams, with a good DP, a decent crew, production insurance, location costs, FX, etc etc? It's not exactly a comfortable amount of money.
I wish bloggers would stop using the word 'wheelhouse'. It's like they all just discovered it at once.
De Palma, Passion, good news, 'bout time.
Since when is 20 million chump change?
Sounds great. De Palma hasn't made a great movie since Femme Fatale, which was a really underrated, gloriously weird picture.
This one sounds really interesting.