The Suspiria remake (with Goblin's music)

Has been a long time since began the first rumors about a remake of Suspiria, seen with the utmost suspicion by the fans of Dario Argento's masterpiece. In my book I pointed out that Goblin have sold the rights for the use (or adaption) of their original musical themes. Recently the director David Gordon Green returned to the topic during a round of interviews to promote his latest work: 'Your Highness'. Here is a college of his statements: “I’m hopefully going to get into a horror film, next. That’s the goal. It’s an idea that came to me three years ago, I co-wrote the script with my sound-designer, which of course offered a completely new perspective as well. ‘Suspiria’ doesn’t follow the trend of the traditional horror movies of late, so it’s a leap of faith, financially. It’s actually very faithful. I’m gonna put my spin on it, but in terms of a pitch, it’s going to remain quite faithful to the original. The script is very faithful, it’s less about ballet and more of a story about the occult and a boarding school for girls in Germany. Scene for scene it’s very similar. In terms of the aesthetic, I haven’t really worked out yet. I’ve just started to get my cinematographer and production designer to look at it, and I’m sure we’re all going to bring our ideas to the table. I don’t want to emulate him or rip him off, I don’t want to do a shot for shot remake of it. But I do feel like it’s a springboard to a lot of huge ideas, and a lot of artful, magnificent ideas. Things that aren’t in the movie theaters in the genre right now. I think fans of that movie will see that we’re taking those concepts — and in some cases those scenes, and in some cases those exact shots and dialogue —and expanding on it and making it very artful. And hopefully, horrifying. Composer Steve Jablonsky will integrate the Goblin tunes into a new score. We got the rights to all of the Goblin music. I loved working with Jablonsky on the score to ‘Your Highness’ and I would love to use the evolution of Suspiria, which does get more dreamlike in the movie, and to start it very authentic and true to what Goblin has done and by the end of it turn it into like opera and choruses and orchestral versions of it. I think it would be an amazing way to evolve the scope of the movie; it starts out very small and specific, and it gets totally off its ass."

Interesting news that confirm the importance of the sound in the movie: the director has already decided not only the composer (Steve Jablonsky, author of the music for the remakes of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘Friday the 13^th’, ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, ‘Amityville Horror’, ‘The Hitcher’, but also for ‘The Island’ and ‘Transformers’) and the use of the tunes composed by Goblin, but he even wrote the script with a 'sound designer'. It remains a mystery what will be the look of the remake: due to the outstanding quality of photography and decor in the Argento’s cult movie, the director may opt for choices that are radically different.

Natalie Portman will not be part of the cast. Portman, the star of 'Black Swan', an interpretation that earned her an Academy Award, was originally interested in the remake of Suspiria but now there are too many similarities with 'Black Swan' (for the trailer of this movie the production even optioned the rights for the use of the theme Suspiria, then unused). Green has stated that: “We’ve been talking about it, then she decided to do ‘Black Swan’ I want an unknown cast, and I think she’s a little too old for it. My version isn’t necessarily about ballet, it’s more of an all-girls boarding school, so I think she’s probably too old to pass for a high school-er. I don’t think it will have names, but hopefully it will be at a studio. Because I definitely enjoy having a movie that gets marketed that people go to see. But there’s no greater passport. ‘Suspiria’ is a great reason to move to Germany, hang out there for awhile, discover some new European cast members, find something scary”.

However the project seems still in an embryonic state, stay tuned for more news...