Good afternoon!
Please have a look at the following article, which is one of many found this afternoon resulting from a “Johnny Depp Thin Man” Google search –
http://cinemablend.com/new/Johnny-Depp-Wants-Rob-Marshall-To-Help-Him-Remake-The-Thin-Man-21313.html
I’m not sure if any of you have seen the original The Thin Man from the 1930s starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, but the book by Dashiell Hammett ended up supplying the movies with a pair of characters worthy of six total films. Nick was a private investigator until he retired from that life to marry Nora, manage her stake in her family’s mining business and live off of her money. To say that Nora was wealthy would be a gross understatement. To say that these two characters drink a lot of booze over the course of the story would be another immense understatement.
Let me try and provide an example of Nick’s drinking habit: in one of the five Thin Man sequels, Nick Charles is sitting on a park bench across the street from his apartment, watching his son play in the park with Asta, the family’s faithful and entertaining dog. Across the street and nine floors up in the apartment, the Charles’ maid mixes a batch of brunch cocktails, then hurries to the balcony and looks for Nick in the park through some binoculars. Sure enough, the maid sees Nick stop reading, look around, sniff the air and then motion for his son that it’s time to go home – supposedly because he can smell the drinks from across the street and nine floors down. While this scene may be a little too cutesy for those unfamiliar with the series, let me just say that the first film is without doubt a classic and well worth a watch to see if you like these characters.
As an idea, I don’t really care for remakes. I find that if the film was well made the first time around, I’m upset that they’re fouling a “classic” (see Vince Vaughn in Psycho as an example). If Hollywood remakes a terrible movie, I often think “won’t it be hard to improve upon an inherently bad idea?” (see the late 90s Hollywood version of Godzilla as an example). But every now and again, a Hollywood update seems to hit the sweet spot: while Johnny Depp’s suggestion to take a stab at The Thin Man sounds great, there’s a remake closer to theaters coming in December. True Grit, a remake of the John Wayne starring picture from the 70s is on its way, friends. This time around, the Coen Brothers will direct, Jeff Bridges will star, and Josh Brolin and Matt Damon will co-star – sounds pretty good, right?