Michael Haneke's Funny Games (2007)
 

I was looking up Michael Haneke on the IMDB and lo and behold, I see this entry for 2007.

A Funny Games remake! I shiver for a second and then see he's still writing it and directing it. And let's see, we've got Naomi Watts (supposedly), Tim Roth, Michael Pitt (nice!) and Brady Corbett (Thunderbirds).

My guess is it will be out in a year or so.

Now I've got another movie besides At World's End to look forward to next year. I'm confident this remake won't be anything like The Vanishing and have a cop-out ending to please American audiences.

What are your thoughts?

Reminded of hearing George Sluizer talk at a screening (for the Stone Raft) a few years ago. Sluizer came very close to being apologetic for the Vanishing remake once it was brought up. He did express regret and lamented the final product, but didn't expressly blame the producers. His excuse was that the production had seen so much conflict and interference that when the time came around to put together the climax, he was so beaten down he just gave in.

So that's his side of the story.

As for Funny Games, it's a Haneke feature I have yet to see (think I've seen 5 of his films). Sometimes I find him frustrating, other times amazing, but always in command of the craft.

So if this remake sees the light of day I can be sure to find the original playing in one of the art-house theaters here in Chicago, which is nice.

I can't imagine that a remake - especially one with a very watchable "star" like Watts - could possibly have anywhere near the same level of raw, this-is-so-fucked terror that the original had. It is probably one of the great 'feel bad movies' of all time.

I'm 110% happy with the first one. A remake - Haneke or not - just seems superfluous. Sluizer's botching of The Vanishing remake should be a HUGE warning sign of what can go horribly wrong, even with best intentions....

I love Watts and the original movie, so count me in.

Watts gets a freebie card from me since she showed every range of emotion and every form of acting in Mulholland Drive, she can do anything, and do it very well.

Plus I enjoy remakes, I mean, I prefer originals, but remakes always intrigue me.

When they announced this I wasn't really open to the idea. I couldn't figure out why he'd remake Funny Games instead of offering us an original film. I've seen and own all of his movie's, and it kind of upset me that since "Cache" managed to gain a small North American audience his fans would have to suffer through this remake.

After having a while to think about it however, I respect and appreciate that he needs to make money like everyone else, and of all his films Funny Games is easily the one that is most commercially viable. I'd rather he remake Funny Games then ruin his next film by attempting to target the audience Cache managed to capture by chance (it was a good film, I just didn't expect it to get the fame it did). Maybe this will be his North American contribution, and his next film will be more like his earlier works. Cache was a brilliant film in my eyes, but I've always preferred the 7th Continent trilogy and Das Schloss to his more recent work.

On the same note, will a North American audience appreciate the message being sent in the film? All of the violence in Funny Games is implied (part of the brilliance obviously), but I'm not sure people going to theatre's in America will enjoy a thriller in which all the violence is off screen. People have become accustomed to blood and gore, so this might end up being a "flop" in the audience’s eyes, especially since I can see the people marketing will push it as a dramatic thriller. The original was tense and very smart cinema, but I went in with an Arthouse state of mind. I'm not sure my kid sister could appreciate the film the same way I did.

The original blew me away... I doubt I will watch a remake.

The original ending better be there.

Michael Haneke remaking Funny Games
 

Just read Michael Haneke shot a remake of his own Funny Games due to be released in October. And now it's not an Austrian film, but a US/UK/French release. Although I like Haneke and believe he can make a nice film (even a remake adopted for English-speaking audience), now just two examples come to mind - Takashi Shimizu's The Grudge which was not much worse, but definately no better than the original directed by himself, and George Sluizer's The Vanishing turned out to be a catastrophe after his own brilliant Spoorloos. I'm afraid Haneke can stand in a row with these failures.

Naomi Watts (Also producer) and Tim Roth are fronting this one, so unlike The Grudge, it won't have painfully bad acting. I hear it is nearly a shot-for-shot remake, kind of like what they did with Psycho, but from German to English.

I'm not a big fan of the original, I know what it was getting at, but it just didn't work on all the levels it could have. Memorable flick though.

There's already a thread about this remake:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=486003

It's generally a good idea to do a search before starting a new thread, in case somebody else has already started one.

Alfred Hitchcock remade The Man Who Knew Too Much and Ozu re-did Floating Weeds.

Oh, believe me, I did. I'm not a newbie here so I did, but we all know how many irrelevant threads we get after hitting the search button...
Well, yeah, acting might be on the good level, but still... Why do it? I still can't understand a reason for Van Sant remaking Psycho. The remake was OK, but still why? If only to take it as some kind of an cinematic experiment...

Search Tip: Search Movie's forum using "Title Only"... Makes life a lot easier.

And why remake your own movie? To bring it to a bigger audience. Haneke is aware of the American dislike of anything foreign and he wants it seen, so what better way to test the english market than have some very talented actors remake a well received movie?

While I have my reservations about some of Haneke's work, he is still a filmmaker with an amazingly assured grasp on the forms and functions of cinema, much more than Sluizer. And I don't mean that as a negative on Sluizer. I just see, in Haneke's films, the hands of a master at work. I may not agree with how he uses that skill in some cases, but it's still something to behold.

So, I look upon this remake as an item of interest, rather than some kind of attempt to appeal to a broader market (regardless of what the filmmakers' actual intentions are).

Though, Funny Games is one of his films I have yet to see. Hopefully one of the venues around me will feature the original when the remake debuts. His stuff is so much more effective on the big screen.

Then a question that's been interesting me for a long time - why Americans don't percept that well anything foreign?

Actually me too, and I'm not that kind of person who always starts moaning: Why, oh God, why?! Why Hollywood always has to ruin good movies with their pityful remakes?!.. No, I'm just a little bit anxious about it, that's all. It's just that Funny Games was arguably a great film. And now Haneke makes a remake and condemns it for a life-long comparison which 99% will be not in favour of this remake. I don't know - maybe it will be ingenious like the rest of his work (although I haven't seen it all), but still I'm anxious...

Lots of US moviegoers just don't like reading subtitles, plain and simple. And furthermore, a lot of them might be leery of watching a movie without a recognizable face. So Haneke gets to kill two birds with one stone with this remake.

I'm really dying to see what this new version will be like. Will it be a virtual shot-for-shot remake with American accents? Funny Games is absolutely brutal, so will it be a straight remake that has been toned down slightly? Or, horror of horrors, will it be like when Sluzier remade his film The Vanishing for American audiences, and had to end it neatly and happily with everything done up in a little bow?

Guess time (and a trailer) will tell.

Michael Pitt's in it, I'm genuinely interested.

I'll watch this, if for no other reason, because I love Naomi Watts. And I loved the original. Seeing as how this is shot-for-shot I'm pretty sure we can count on the ending remaining intact.

As much as I love Haneke, I wish he would've made something new instead - or maybe it's because I dig him so much...

He needs to remake Cache just so Ron Howard can't.

This hits theaters in February. Here is the trailer
http://video.msn.com/v/us/fv/fv.htm?...-f281e8d11864&

Looks good to me!

Well thats a weird trailer.

I love the original, so I won't be watching the remake (keeping in mind the travesty of Sluizer's U.S. "Vanishing" remake).
The only aspect I would see as an improvement is the excision of the Brechtian interregnum of Arno Frisch's character (using the TV remote to pause and rewind the film to change events). It was an unnecessary and annoying tactic that threw cold water on the film's very real horror.

Translation for dummies?

I thought the trailer looked good, but that's probably because I thought the original was good and this is essentially shot-for-shot. I still think it's pointless, but if I can watch Naomi Watts tied up for 2 hours color me happy.

Just google "Verfremdungseffekt" :)