defamer.com Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Things weren't so peaceful in the movie buff land when word got out a few weeks ago that Werner Herzog plans to remake Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage in the lead role. Even noted trash auteur Abel Ferrara publicly complained about having his work redone. Bad Lieutenant isn't anybody's idea of a good time: Harvey Keitel puts on a freakishly raunchy performance. Still, it definitely sounds like Herzog's pumped about the gig. Defamer cornered the director in New York today for a few questions about the project, and the responses are kind of amazing. Herzog tends to do a great job of explaining himself, no matter what crazy scheme he has cooked up, but the best part of this interview arrives when the guy claims utter cluelessness about Ferrara's work. Way to stick it to the source material.

To hear Herzog tell it, his version of Bad Lieutenant isn't a remake, although he wouldn't know, since it sounds like hasn't actually seen the original. However, he says that Cage's character's name and the plot are entirely new. Herzog apparently liked the "very, very dark story," written by William M. Finkelstein, and he can't wait to work with Cage (given Herzog's notorious appreciation of Anna Nicole Smith, this last bit actually makes sense). Hearing about Ferrara's discontent, Herzog just eggs him on: "Let him fight the windmills, like Don Quixote." It's a feud made in heaven, almost too good to be true. You might just call it ecstatic truth.

Top: Early poster art for the new 'Bad Lieutenant,' snapped at the Cannes Film Festival last month.

When two movies with similar plots hit theaters around the same time, it usually just reveals the vapidity of Hollywood formula (as was the case when Deep Impact and Armageddon came out a few months apart). The situation changes, however, when the subject matter has far more thematic weight. Defamer's S.T. VanAirsdale points out the potential conflict brewing now that The Weinstein Company has picked up U.S. theatrical, DVD and television rights to the 2004 German film Operation Valykrie, a dramatization of the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hilter during World War II. Sound familiar? That's because Bryan Singer's upcoming 2009 release, Valkyrie, tells precisely the same story, with Tom Cruise in the role of would-be assassin Col. Claus Von Stauffenberg. In the German movie, the character is played by Sebastian Koch, the debonair star of The Lives of Others and Paul Verhoeven's Black Book.

In addition to the overlapping content, VanAirsdale points out another potential conflict: Koch's female co-star in Black Book, the alluring Carice van Houten, stars opposite Cruise in Valkyrie, creating the sort of meaty overlap that money can buy. Harvey Weinstein's no slouch when it comes to instigating controversy, but his company hasn't exactly had the best of luck with its recent daring titles (few turned out for Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?). Personal drama has impacted Cruise's films before, but this might be the rare case where he would have nothing to do with it.