Gone Girl team to reunite for Strangers on a Train

Gillian Flynn, David Fincher and Ben Affleck, the creative team and lead actor behind 2014’s massively successful Gone Girl, have announced that their next project together will be a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 classic, Strangers on a Train. Gone Girl made over $350 million worldwide on a $60 million budget, a fact that is sure to excite the people at Warner Brothers.

The original motion picture, based on the book of the same name by Patricia Highsmith, is one of Hitchcock’s most celebrated. Its Kafkaesque narrative concerns a murderous plot hatched by two men (played by Farley Granger and Robert Walker) to kill each other’s wife in order to confuse potential investigators. Known for the way in which Hitchcock used light and dark in order to add subtext, the original film had a divisive reception when it was originally released, with publications such as Variety praising it, while other publications, such as The New York Times, criticised the film for its perceived melodramatic elements.

In recent years, however, reception has warmed to the film. Noted film critic Roger Ebert dubbed the original a ‘first-rate thriller’. With further reports that Flynn, Fincher, and Affleck have plans to update the story for the modern day and a modern audience, we can only hope that this new adaptation will be as timeless and memorable as Hitchcock’s original motion picture.

Until then, Flynn and Fincher are busy at work on HBO’s Utopia, a remake of the British Channel 4 original. Affleck will next be on screen playing the dual role of Batman and Bruce Wayne in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, due out in 2016. There is no word yet as to whether Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, Fincher’s frequent musical collaborators, will also be involved in the project.