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Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is considered one of the finest movies ever made, but Hollywood has never turned down the chance to remake something that doesn’t need to be remade. It’s been two years since we first heard of the Vertigo remake, which will tentatively star Robert Downey Jr., but screenwriter Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) told The Direct that the project is still in the works.

“It’s swirling around in my head as we speak,” Knight said. “I’m having flashbacks to about an hour ago when I was writing. It’s an interesting—I mean, of course, people consider it the best film ever made. So you’d have to be an idiot to adapt it, and so that’s what I am.“

Knight is an accomplished screenwriter, and he’s all too aware that getting Vertigo right (and justifying why it should even be made) will take some time.

Alfred Hitchcock: The Iconic Film Collection will collect six of the Master of Suspense’s classics on 4K Ultra HD + Digital: Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds.

Releasing on November 26 via Universal, the six-disc set is limited to 5,150. It’s housed in premium book-style packaging featuring artwork by Tristan Eaton along with photos, bios, and trivia.

In 1954’s Rear Window, “A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.”

It’s written by John Michael Hayes (To Catch a Thief), based on Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 short story “It Had to Be Murder.” James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr star.

Rear Window special features:

Audio commentary by Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The Well-Made Film author John Fawell Rear Window Ethics – 2000 documentary Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael...

The Vertigo final scene sums up all the qualities that made Alfred Hitchcock such an important filmmaker. Often regarded as his best work and considered by many to be the greatest film of all time, it's safe to say every modern thriller has a little bit of Vertigo in its synthesis. That's because the 1958 movie followed many conventions of the traditional film noir, while improving on the genre for the perfect balance between a harrowing mystery and a beautiful love story. Clashing the two elements through a succession of twists, Vertigo leads to a shocking, unrelenting ending typical of Hitchcock's work.

The movie follows Scottie (James Stewart), a detective who forced himself to retire due to his acrophobia that is, a great fear of heights, which is constantly symbolized in Vertigo through the use of spirals. He reluctantly accepts a mission from a dear friend that turns out to...

Alice Walker published her acclaimed novel “The Color Purple” in 1982. It sold five million copies; Walker became the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and she also received the National Book Club Award. Three years later, Steven Spielberg directed the lauded film version which made stars out of Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover. It earned 11 Oscar nominations. The story revolves around a young woman who suffers abuse from her father and husband for four decades until she finds her own identity. Not exactly the stuff of a Broadway musical.

But the 2005 tuner version received strong reviews, ran 910 performances and earned ten Tony nominations, winning best actress for Lachanze. The 2015 production picked up two Tonys for best revival and actress for Cynthia Erivo. The movie musical version opened strong Christmas Day with $18 million and is a strong contender in several Oscar categories especially for Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks.

Though Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo remains one of the best movies the master of suspense brought to screens, that isn't giving Paramount – which produced the original 1958 thriller – pause. Especially since the studio has Robert Downey Jr. interested in starring.

Hitch's original saw writers Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor adapting the Boileau-Narcejac novel D’entre les morts (From Among The Dead) into the story of John 'Scottie' Ferguson, a San Francisco police detective forced to retire when he develops a severe fear of heights.

Scottie is reluctantly dragged back into action when Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), an old acquaintance from college and shipping magnate, enlists his help to shed light on the disturbing behaviour of Madeleine (Kim Novak), his icy, remote wife. However, as the intrigued friend follows unsuspecting Madeleine's every move, more and more, a dangerous attraction teetering on the brink of obsession begins to form…

Paramount has Steven Knight...

Deadline has reported that Paramount Pictures is developing a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The psychological thriller is considered by many to be not only one of Hitchcock’s finest movies, but one of the best of all time. The project does have some star power behind it, as Robert Downey Jr. is eyeing the leading role of the former police detective forced to retire after an incident in the line of duty causes him to develop acrophobia and vertigo.

The Vertigo remake is set to be scripted by Steven Knight, the Peaky Blinders creator who recently signed on to write the new Star Wars movie. Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey will produce the remake through their Team Downey banner, alongside John Davis and John Fox of Davis Entertainment. The original 1958 film starred Jimmy Stewart as John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson, a former detective obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman he was hired to investigate.

This post contains spoilers for "Vertigo."

Alfred Hitchcock liked to make things weird, and not just on-screen. He made things beyond weird for Tippi Hedren in "The Birds" and generally made a lot of actors uncomfortable, to say the least. He also managed to make some excellent films, with as sinister an aura as the man himself seemingly possessed. And believe it or not, part of his filmmaking prowess came from an ability to maintain an almost childlike approach.

There's something important about having a child-like perspective on art. Stan Brakhage wrote about it in his 1963 cinematic manifesto "Metaphors On Vision," in which he talks about an "eye unruled by the man-made laws of perspective." It sounds a bit pompous but the basic idea is anything but. Approaching something without any pre-conceived notions of what that thing should be can lead to real artistic achievement. In the case of Hitchcock,...

It's tempting to compare promising young directors to canonical ones. If they have overlapping styles/genre preferences, then calling a director "the next X" makes for convenient shorthand. However, this is facile criticism. For one, it's not useful for appreciating these artists on their own merits, because it implies all they can ever amount to is an imitator. By putting blossoming artists in the shadows of titans, you also set them up to experience backlash. Newsweek called M. Night Shyamalan "The Next Spielberg" in 2002 instead ironically heralded his career downturn in the late aughts/early '10s.

Jordan Peele is the latest to experience this. Now three for three in making horror/suspense films, he's been compared to the original master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. In Variety's review of "Nope," the headline called Peele "Our Modern Day Hitchcock." If you've read /Film's own writing on "Nope" (courtesy Josh Spiegel), or...

Hitchcock’s masterpiece, rereleased after 60 years, combines his flair for psychological shocks with a genius for dapper stylishness

The unbearably sad, exquisitely macabre love story that is Vertigo now reaches its 60th birthday, and this week sees its rerelease, not much liked on first appearing in 1958 but now hugely canonical and prestigious, recently unseating Citizen Kane at the top of the Sight and Sound critics’ poll, due very much to unending critical interest in “the male gaze”, pioneered by theorists such as Michel Foucault and Laura Mulvey. This is that act of seeing that, so far from being transparent and neutral, is an imposition of power, and therefore extremely applicable to this drama of obsession and voyeurism, although I never tire of pointing out that there are very few members of the hetero-patriarchy who have the confidence or fanatical connoisseurship to pick out a woman’s clothes or exactly specify her hairstyle.

MGM wasn’t the most current studio in 1957, as can be seen by this throwback to another era, a semi-screwball romantic comedy with big stars and directed in high style by Vincente Minnelli. Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall party like it’s 1939, and with the musical-comedy help of the irrepressible Dolores Gray, almost pull it off.

Designing Woman

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date June 19, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Gray, Sam Levene, Tom Helmore, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jesse White, Chuck Connors, Alvy Moore.

Cinematography: John Alton

Film Editor: Adrienne Fazan

Art Direction: E. Preston Ames, William A. Horning

Original Music: André Previn

Written by George Wells

Produced by Dore Schary, George Wells

Directed by Vincente Minnelli

1957 was definitely the end of an era at MGM. With next to nobody on the payroll, it could no longer claim to possess All the Stars in Heaven.

Gregory Peck from ‘Duel in the Sun’ to ‘How the West Was Won’: TCM schedule (Pt) on August 15 (photo: Gregory Peck in ‘Duel in the Sun’) See previous post: “Gregory Peck Movies: Memorable Miscasting Tonight on Turner Classic Movies.” 3:00 Am Days Of Glory (1944). Director: Jacques Tourneur. Cast: Gregory Peck, Lowell Gilmore, Maria Palmer. Bw-86 mins. 4:30 Am Pork Chop Hill (1959). Director: Lewis Milestone. Cast: Gregory Peck, Harry Guardino, Rip Torn. Bw-98 mins. Letterbox Format. 6:15 Am The Valley Of Decision (1945). Director: Tay Garnett. Cast: Greer Garson, Gregory Peck, Donald Crisp. Bw-119 mins. 8:15 Am Spellbound (1945). Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming, Bill Goodwin, Norman Lloyd, Steve Geray, John Emery, Donald Curtis, Art Baker, Wallace Ford, Regis Toomey, Paul Harvey, Jean Acker, Irving Bacon, Jacqueline deWit, Edward Fielding, Matt Moore, Addison Richards, Erskine Sanford, Constance Purdy. Bw-111 mins. 10:15 Am Designing Woman (1957). Director: Vincente Minnelli.

The trouble with being the best movie of all time is that Vertigo is now an easy target for criticism. But this strange, frustrating story of a haunted pervert will always evade definition

Hypnotised and hypnotic, mad and maddening, surely no commercial studio film (admittedly, a commercial and critical flop on its release) has ever offered and withheld such intricacy of intent and interpretation as Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Pored over, parsed for clues, yanked to and fro by academics and psychoanalysts, its spirals of meaning permeate the development of film theory like the ringbound spine of a syllabus folder.

Last week, with the weight of Magna Carta, the BFI proclaimed Hitchcock's 46th feature the greatest film ever made, displacing Citizen Kane's 50-year reign at the top. Claiming the summit can of course only be a bad thing for Vertigo, marking the moment it stops being a singular work of unsettling depth and power,...

Every month the Sound On Sight staff bands together to tackle a specific filmmaker, event and/or some sort of movie related theme. This month our focus shifts towards the “Master of Suspense”, Alfred Hitchcock.

Much has been written about the male gaze in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece, Vertigo. Laura Mulvey’s seminal essay “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema,” notes that the male gaze dominates Hitchcock’s work, forcing the viewer to see through the eyes of the heterosexual male (Jimmy Stewart’s Scottie, in this case) as he fetishizes and objectifies Kim Novak through his point-of-view and Hitchcock’s camera.

The famous “following” scene, where an enamored Scottie follows the object of his investigation and desire, Madeleine (Novak) lasts for 12 minutes and 40 seconds.

Later, when Scottie plays Pygmalion and attempts to remake Judy (Novak again) in Madeleine’s image, the audience is again relegated to his perspective for nearly a full 10 minutes.