As David Fincher ponders which of his four in-development projects he will be tackling next over at Netflix, somebody might have beaten him to the punch on one of them.
Fincher is said to have four projects in the works at Netflix: the western “Bitterroot,” “Squid Game: America,” the “Chinatown” prequel series and a remake of Hitchcock’s “Rope.” The InSneider is now reporting that Morten Tyldum (“The Imitation Game”) is also attached to direct a remake of “Rope.”
The remake is coming to us from Davis Entertainment, whose John Davis will produce the film. There’s no word yet on casting or whether Tyldum will be working from a script by Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”) who had written a draft for the Netflix/Fincher version.
Tyldum is known for 2011’s “Headhunters” and, more notably, “The Imitation Game,” which earned eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Tyldum went on to direct Sony’s 2016 big-budget bomb “Passengers,” starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, and he hasn’t helmed a feature since then.
The Norwegian filmmaker has been doing TV since the “Passengers” disaster, directing the “Jack Ryan” pilot for Amazon, Apple TV+ series “Defending Jacob” starring Chris Evans as well as the first three episodes of the streamer’s “Silo” starring Rebecca Ferguson.
“Rope,” one of the seminal MacGuffin movies, tackled two men try to convince themselves they've committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party after strangling a former classmate to death. The film starred Starring James Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger,
I love Hitchcock’s film, which is one of his best, and multiple directors, including Fincher and Rupert Goold had been circling the remake in recent years. Tyldum hopping onboard the project instead of Fincher has now made this project far less enticing.