Suspiria Remake: David Gordon Green Hopes It

For quite some time, Pineapple Express, Joe and George Washington director David Gordon Green has hoped to remake Suspiria, Dario Argento’s immortal Italian horror film. Despite our remake-heavy period, many bristle at the concept, as Suspiria seems so closely tied to Argento’s directorial identity. Who could match its madness? But Green is a peculiar and varied filmmaker himself, one whose sheer tenacity in trying to make this witch film happen has to make one curious. In January of 2013, after discussing the film since at least 2008, Green noted, it “may never happen.” Well, look alive Mother of Sighs, the director is hopeful again.

“I’m actually hopeful that it’s happening with a great Italian director that I had breakfast with last week,” Green told hosts William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold of the Crave B-Movies Podcast. This is of course a majorly intriguing statement. Is it a member of the Italian horror old guard? A contemporary filmmaker like Matteo Garrone, or Saverio Costanzo? How wild would Asia Argento, whose Incompresa played last fall’s New York Film Festival, be?

Green didn’t let on. He did look back however, at his original vision of Suspiria, first set to star Natalie Portman and then skewed younger (as Argento’s was meant to) with Orphan’s Isabelle Fuhrman. “I wrote it with my sound designer. I love Argento’s film and we wrote a very faithful, extremely elegant opera, basically of [Suspiria],” Green explains. “I don’t mean musical opera, but it would be incredibly heightened music, and heightened and very operatic and elegant sets. Isabelle Huppert was going to be in it, [and] Janet McTeer. We had an amazing cast of elegance and prestige that we were engineering for it.”

Green goes on to discuss how Suspiria never materialized, namely that despite his diverse skill set (Snow Angels ? Your Highness), Green’s unproven horror talents couldn’t get an expensive production off the ground. Especially as cost-effective horror reigns supreme.

Will we see a Suspiria remake yet? Likely not before the original receives its anticipated 4K Blu release (beautiful screens of which, you can find below).