"TOO SMALL BY HOLLYWOOD STANDARDS"

The New Criterion is blogging about a Hollywood remake of Brideshead Revisited:

Jude Law will play Sebastian. Notice how this report claims that Castle Howard, the setting of the 1981 series, “was considered too small by Hollywood standards.” Nice.

Castle Howard was also used as Castle Hackton in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. I actually visited there in 2000 — and it’s enormous — both the castle and the estate that it’s on.

James Panero writes:

I asked James Bowman if it is a Hollywood imperative that all great films be remade as bad films. Even ‘Psycho,’ he pointed out, was redone–but not yet “Casablanca.” Which leads me to wonder, is it only a matter of time before we get “Casablanca, The Reckoning… because, this time, it’s personal”?

Does the TV series that starred David Soul as Rick, and Hector Elizondo as Louis Renault count? It had a mercifully brief run in 1983, but still, it demonstrated the sheer hubris of trying to remake one of the great films of all time.

On the other hand: Citizen Kane II: The Wrath of Susan Alexander has yet to be made. But give ’em time…