Today brings the absolutely baffling news (via THR) that actor/producer Robert Pattinson and Smile director Parker Finn will attempt to remake Andrzej Żuławski’s oblique psychotronic 1981 masterpiece Possession, and we can’t for the life of us figure out why they would want to do that.
It’s probably the internet’s fault; after decades of existing safely in out-of-print obscurity, Żuławski’s tale of marital infidelity, sexual obsession, tentacled alien rutting and (spoiler) the end of the world was remastered and made more widely available a few years ago, exposing modern audiences to the singular, bleak, and exhilarating film.
Then the gifs and memes started.
Isabelle Adjani smiling. Sam Neill looking crazed in a rocking chair. Isabelle Adjani having an alien miscarriage out of her ears in a subway station. A film that was a secret handshake among a few became co-opted by social media, a once-pure thing cut with the baby laxative of Giphy.
And I guess all those out-of-context gifs formed a cursed path to where we find ourselves today, with the project as the subject of a bidding war between two or three studios who should know better, and one or two who of course don’t.
Execs who have definitely never seen the original film are quoted as calling the project “batshit” and “exciting.” Fans of the original who’ve checked in with Fango about this news reacted with such messages as “ARE YOU KIDDING,” “UHHHHHHHHH,” and “Oh fuck off.”
More news as we hear it; I don’t expect our question of “why, for god’s sake, why” will ever get an acceptable answer.
I can hear the participants of this project being cursed in Winnipeg from here.
(We’ve been encouraged to say “But we’ve been wrong before” at the end. So there you go.)
