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EXCLUSIVE: Ben Ripley, who most recently penned Source Code, has been signed to a development deal with Sony to write a contemporary reimagining of Flatliners, the 1990 Joel Schumacher drama about medical students who dabble too far into near-death experiments that starred then-emerging actors like Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts and William Baldwin, as well as Kevin Bacon. Maybe Sony thinks a redo can launch a few more young careers in the same manner? Laurence Mark is set to produce, likely with Further Films, for Columbia Pictures. David Blackman is overseeing for Laurence Mark Prods. Ripley penned the April release Source Code for Summit Entertainment; the film was a surprise hit and has made $123.3 million worldwide to date.
Sony Hires ‘Source Code’ Writer Ben Ripley To Pen ‘Flatliners’ Redo
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Oh for God’s sake.
The frustrated simplicity of your comment just caused iced coffee to shoot from my nostrils!
Here we Go Again!……Another Re-boot, Remake, Replication, Retribution, Renal, Reptile Production….from people afraid of Creativity and bringing us something New…..like….Source Code was….
That does it — Hollywood is now officially brain dead.
So, in essence, he’s an explosives expert – being hired to rebuild a bomb. Source Code was great. Hopefully Ripley can re-imagine (is this stupid term Tim Burton’s fault?) this new version to not suck, although I do have fond memories of Keifer getting beat up by children…please keep that part, Ben.
Or Julia walking in on her pa with his brains blown out. I always kind of liked FLATLINERS as an escapist thriller. Not award worthy, but fun, with an awesome cast that raised interesting questions.
Why remake it with such a great cast before?
Reimagining. Think about that word.
An oxymoron (plural oxymorons or oxymora) (from Greek ????????, “sharp dull”) is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms.
This is a great idea. I’ll never forget seeing flatliners when it opened…. it scared the crap out of me. Maybe more people will get the message this time.
A soldier wakes up in the body of a young screenwriter… Caught in an endless timeloop of remaking Flatliners– will he stop the endless cycle of remake bombs!?
I don’t even know what to say anymore… A remake of “Flatliners”… are you kidding me?
Is a “contemporary re-imagining” the same as “a remake?”
Hopefully this time they will actually be mindful of the original story that Flatliners was essentially lifted from, a book by Stanley Shapiro called “Simon’s Soul” – written in 1979. Shapiro not only wrote this, but he wrote the screenplays for “Pillow Talk, “Lover Come Back,” “That Touch of Mink,” “Bedtime Stor,” “Operation Petticoat” and many other films.
Please, really please, NO!
I feel run over by this re-pen effort. Feels like BAD revisionist history.
Gives me the creeps, more than the Flatliners movie.
I wish Deadline would give some explanations, as to WTF is going on in this industry.
Sure seems like bad business to me.
It’s ripe for a remake.
Shia LaBeouf, Anton Yelchin, Penn Badgley and Chad Michael Murray in the Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt roles
Mischa Barton, Sophia Bush, Kat Dennings or Leighton Meester in the Julia Roberts role
What a god awful movie. Why?
We may be approaching a time where a remake will be green-lit before the DVD of the original is released. Remake of “Saving Private Ryan” anyone? Come on, it’s time, already!
Heck, we may be approaching a time where the remake is greenlit before the original has even been released into theaters.
i think they did when they seen Conan
Better yet, remake the original before the original’s release!
Launch young careers? Pah-leez! The studio will go to Alex P, Taylor L, Zac E, Miley C, Emma W., etc etc. Any new up-n-comers there?
It is what it is…depressing…what it takes to get a film funded…in the minds of those who sign the checks…the business of filmmaking.
Great – can we assume a remake of “Weekend at Bernie’s II” is right around the corner as well?!
Isn’t Warner coming out with the very similar Apparition with Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan later this year?
Really? What was wrong with Flatliners the first time that the studio feels a need to remake it? Can’t these fools leave anything alone? Damn!
If the commenters here had their way these movies would not exist:
The Maltese Falcon (only ten years after the original!)
Ben Hur
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
A Star is Born
A Fistful of Dollars
The Fly
The Magnificent Seven
Scarface
The Thing
Mutiny on the Bounty
You make a great point–not all remakes are bad. However, those movies were all based on fantastic material that was either not executed well the first time, or was truly re-imagined (i.e. The Magnificent Seven). Or, in the case of Ben-Hur, was originally a silent film. I think the True Grit remake worked so well because instead of being a vehicle for an aging star, the story was given back to the book’s actual protagonist.
But, I gotta say, I don’t see anything in the Flatliners concept that makes it worthy of being “re-imagined.”
Sir Charles it’s telling that most of the movies you cite are about 40 to 60 years old — what’s Hollywood’s RECENT TRACK RECORD in this department?
Oh right, it’s absolutely horrible. From HOUSE OF WAX to WICKER MAN to PSYCHO to ARTHUR to ALFIE to HITCHER to GODZILLA to THE LONGEST YARD to PINK PANTHER to TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE to GET CARTER to DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and many many more steaming piles of excrement which are a much more accurate indication of what we can expect from this remake than the decades-old movies you cited.
Was thinking the same thing, Brett. Spot on.
I agree, movies these days aren’t as good. My point is that it’s nothing to do with their being remakes or adaptations. People here are upset at the very concept of remakes as if this is something new Hollywood just thought of, as if they never would have done such a thing in the golden age and that’s simply not true. Hollywood has never relied on original ideas.
Don’t f**k it up.
That is all I ask.
I am a HUGE fan of this film – the message, the themes, the style, the score, the whole shebang.
I think about the opening few moments of it alone all the time (James Newton Howard’s score is so eerie and gorgeous and unsettling)….
Ripley’s a solid writer, and seems to have the right sorta sensibility.
But just do it justice, please.
Same here. I saw Flatliners about six times back in 1990 and have loved it ever since. It’s extremely stylized with a great cast of actors, and very creepy in places. The score is excellent too.
But all the remakes have got so tiresome lately. Hollywood has no new ideas? Budgets getting so ridiculously big no one will risk any unknown material? Sad.
Why? source code already hit the same notes.
Ripley deserves this chance to show what he can do. He wrote an A+ script for SOURCE CODE and it would be on everyone’s Best of 2011 lists if Duncan Jones hadn’t meddled with it and otherwise f*cked it up.
I actually have an original screenplay that I would love to sell (I’m not kidding…and it’s actually never been done before).
Flatliners can’t possibly have enough nostalgia value or name recognition to justify a reboot. They’re just flat-out stealing ideas from themselves now.