In development: you want the bad news first?

This bit of remake hysteria will make my dad spin in his grave, and he’s not even dead yet. Some day, far into the future, when my dear old pop has been laid peacefully to rest, he’ll start spinning, retroactively, simply from the absolute wrong-headedness of it. All because Cinematical and a host of others have reported that a remake of High Noon is in the works.

I can only think – and perhaps even hope – that the late producer Stanley Kramer’s wife, who has sold the film rights to American Film Market, must have been spoon-scraping clean her last tin of cat food while the repo man was hauling away the final sticks of her furniture, otherwise this news makes no sense in a just and righteous world. If we’re wondering when the remake craze has gone too far, film fans, I’d submit that we just passed it up a few days ago.

High Noon holds such a sacred place in the heart of my dear old dad because to him it’s the ultimate cinematic portrayal of honor and morality. Of a strong but flawed man who does the job no one else has the fortitude to do, against all odds and circumstance. It’s Die Hard in a dusty street and the ultimate irony is that when it comes to issues of honor, justice and morality, Hollywood seems to be completely incapable of crafting something new.

Or maybe this is just a scare tactic to get the screenwriters working on original material again. What writer wouldn’t or shouldn’t be outraged by this?

And the irony continues when you consider that Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes shingle, contempt-worthy in and of itself for its remake-delirious rogerings of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Amityville Horror, The Hitcher and more to come, is actually planning to produce something not already filmed by someone else. According to The Hollywood Reporter, writer/director David Goyer is in final negotiations to direct a supernatural thriller he’s written about an 18-year-old who realizes she is slowly being possessed and then begins to fight back. Of course Goyer’s skills are much more dependable as a writer than director, but still this sounds like it’s got some promise. Cinematic demon stories aren’t hard to come by, but the truly scare-worthy ones are, so it might be fun to see how this one plays out.

Then again, maybe these two projects will somehow get merged in development, and we’ll end up with a reluctant sheriff in the old west who has to face down a supernatural horror that is overtaking the town’s populace, including his new bride. It’ll be called something like High Noon: In Hell: The Reckoning: Endgame and it’ll star Christopher Walken, Ryan Reynolds and Heather Graham and be released with a huge Oscar campaign at Christmastime 2008.