Ronald Dahl’s classic work of ‘The Witches’ is going to be brought back to cinematic life by director Robert Zemeckis (‘Back to the Future’,’Contact’). Zemeckis has created quite a few iconic films over his career, and while he hasn’t been directing as much in recent years, this seems to be a perfect fit for his style. The movie is going to be based on the 1973 novel by Roald Dahl and likely be closer to the source material than the 1990 film which the author had previously shared was “utterly appalling.”
Ouch.
The last film became somewhat of a cult classic but did take great liberties with Dahl’s work, so it will be interesting what Zemeckis does as he is also set to pen the script. Behind the scenes, he’ll be producing with Jack Rapke, under their ImageMovers banner with Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón also on board to help. Del Toro has previously been on the short list to be in the director’s chair as well.
The “novel follows a young boy whose life is turned upside down when he discovers the existence of child-hating witches.” Honestly, unless they update the setting to modern times, they really shouldn’t have to stray from the source material to have it work for audiences.
Either way, it is nice to see Zemeckis starting to create more family-friendly content again as personally, I feel that those types of movies were the best work of his career.
Are you looking forward to a new take on ‘The Witches’? Do you want Robert Zemeckis to have his film be closer to the novel or the 1990 reimaging of the plot? Share your thoughts below!
Synopsis:
This is not a fairy tale. This is about real witches.
Grandmamma loves to tell about witches. Real witches are the most dangerous of all living creatures on earth. There’s nothing they hate so much as children, and they work all kinds of terrifying spells to get rid of them. Her grandson listens closely to Grandmamma’s stories—but nothing can prepare him for the day he comes face-to-face with The Grand High Witch herself!
Source: Entertainment Weekly
