David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of the Vincent Price classic The Fly is one of my favorite science fiction/horror films of all time. It has a wonderful sense of operatic gloom, and Jeff Goldblum invests what’s probably one of the best performances in his career, despite being buried underneath a mountain of makeup. Alongside John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Fly is proof that the remake business isn’t entirely a bum deal.
Here comes the news that Cronenberg, hot off the heels of adapting The Fly for true opera with Howard Shore, will be writing and possibly directing a new version of the film. The source cites our modern special effects technology as Cronenberg’s reason to revisit the film.
I’m ready to pass this off as an unsubstantiated rumor, simply for the reason that Cronenberg doesn’t seem like the sort of director who would revisit work solely because of developed special effects. The Fly succeeds not because of the effects work (which is great), but because of the magnetic performances at the center of the film.
But if Cronenberg believes he can recapture that magic twice with different actors, more power to him.
