It’s a bit difficult not to think that remaking Straw Dogs is a bad idea, but Hollywood seems keen to do it, with Rod Lurie (The Last Castle) writing and directing. Now the cast list has been filled out with Kate Bosworth and Alexander Skarsgard joining the already announced James Marsden.
The action for the film will be moved from Cornwall to Mississippi, with Marsden playing a Hollywood screenwriter who relocates with his wife (Bosworth) to her deep south hometown. Skarsgard will be her high school boyfriend, who sees her return as a way to reclaim his former glory, leading to all manner of trouble.
While there’s no reason why a you can’t make a movie about people moving to a small town and suffering increasing levels of harassment from the locals, Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs is such a particular and difficult movie, it would be almost impossible to remake it without losing a lot in the translations. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it’s also tough to imagine Marsden and Bosworth truly following in the footsteps of Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. Maybe Lurie will manage to create a film that retains the social commentary and works in its own right, but this is one remake we don’t really hold out a huge amount of hope for.