Okay, I don’t know how to feel about this.
Deadline has recently reported that critically-acclaimed filmmaker Steven Spielberg is interested not only in producing a remake for the 1940 John Ford classic The Grapes Of Wrath, but may also be interested in directing it as well. Full announcement below:
“Dreamworks is in talks with the estate of author John Steinbeck to make a new version of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. The novel was turned into a classic 1940 film by John Ford, the director who won one of two Oscars out of the seven nominations the picture received. I’d heard this suddenly became a hot movie property, and that Steven Spielberg swooped in to take it off the table over other bidders.”
The first moment I hear any sentence with “Steven Spielberg” in it, my ears pop up in anticipation and excitement. He’s the iconic filmographer behind movies such as Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones and Schindler’s List, and the credible producer behind hundreds of other films including Back To The Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Men In Black, Super 8, and Transformers. The work he directs is consistently masterful and the majority of his productions pretty solid. You can typically expect anything with his name attached to be a good movie.
At the same time though, do we really need a remake of The Grapes of Wrath? That film was among the greatest visualizations of the great depression, and it accurately portrayed the many tragedies and conflicts families had to go through during that terrible time of american history. Is it really necessary to remake that film? Really? We might as well remake The Godfather and Casablanca while we’re at it.
I could just be a stooge about this. I know some Americans have yet to see the movie, so if nothing else this might breathe a new relevant awareness into theaters. What do you guys think? Are you happy to hear cinema master Steven Spielberg interested in a Grapes Of Wrath remake? Or should the treasure just remain honored and buried?
Comment below, let me know.
At the very least, let’s be happy about one thing: that Michael Bay isn’t going through with his plans to remake Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Now that would have sucked.
-David Dunn
Source: Deadline, The Atlantic Wire
DAVID DUNN 
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