The original star of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, Tippi Hedren, spoke to MTV about her thoughts on a remake of the film (get her opinion below), but her dislike for the idea isn’t deterring Universal Pictures and Platinum Dunes from moving forward with the film which will star Naomi Watts in the lead role for director Martin Campbell who is best known for twice reviving the James Bond franchise when he directed GoldenEye in 1995 and Casino Royale in 2006.
The new film is not being billed as a remake necessarily but more as a reimagining of the Daphne Du Maurier short story that inspired Hitchcock’s 1963 classic in which Hedren played Melanie Daniels, a beautiful blonde who arrives in Bodega Bay in pursuit of the handsome and eligible Mitch Brenner, played by Rod Taylor. But love is not the only thing in the air when thousands of birds descend upon the town, attacking and terrorizing its residents. Soon Melanie and Mitch are fighting for their lives against a deadly, unexplainable force in this spine-tingling portrait of nature at its most powerful and ruthless.
The Variety article that reports the news does say that Universal is not going to rush this one into production as the pending writers strike looms. Stiles White and Juliet Snowden wrote a script that is still being developed and new writers may be brought on board to give it a touch up as both Watts and Campbell have full plates for a while. So don’t expect this one to be in theaters any time soon.
