Aug 10, 2011

Tradecraft: A New Twist on Hitchcock - The Kid Who Knew Too Much

According to a Deadline article about a new HBO comedy from writer Bryan Sipe, "Sipe has [also] signed on to do a re-write on the Parkes/MacDonald-produced feature The Kid Who Knew Too Much for Paramount, a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1934 and 1956 movies." As the title clearly indicates, this is a remake of the film that Hitch himself remade (and preferred the remake), only focusing on a kid. In the original(s), a vacationing couple has their son kidnapped to prevent them from talking when they unwittingly stumble upon some intelligence about an upcoming assassination attempt. The father then tracks down clues to save his son. A February story on /film confirms that in the new version, instead of a couple desperately searching for their missing child, we’ll see "a kid looking for his stolen parents." I think that's a sound premise—and one so obvious I can't believe we haven't seen it sooner. Paramount is sort of carving a niche for themselves by remaking Hitchcock movies with a kid focus. (2007's Disturbia was a teen version of Rear Window.) It's unclear from either story how old the protagonist will be, but personally I'd prefer to see a slightly grittier film about a teen rather than a Cody Banks-type fantasy about a younger child. According to the /film article, Fair Game writers John and Jez Butterworth penned the first draft of this.

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