Does it count as a remake when you take a western and turn it into a crime drama involving drug cartels, the CIA and a heist? Well Warner Bros. and David Ayer are taking the old school 1969 version of Sam Peckinpah‘s The Wild Bunch and giving it a true ‘contemporization’ (no, that’s not a word?) as Ayer’s script takes the idea of the original film and spins it into a new school reality.
Originally directed by Sam Peckinpah the 1969 film told the story of an aging band of outlaws as they had their eyes set on staging a robbery along the border of Mexico as the traditional American West began disappearing around them. The new film keeps the locale, but the contemporized version is a complicated tapestry involving drug cartels, the CIA and a heist.
Ayer will helm the new film based on his script and if you want an idea of where this guy’s scripting background comes from and what this film will feel like just check out this list of credits: Training Day, S.W.A.T., Dark Blue, The Fast and the Furious and U-571. Not too shabby eh? Allows for some serious hope for this flick.
Ayer recently made his feature directorial debut with Harsh Times, a drama he wrote that stars Christian Bale and Eva Longoria [get a taste of that one here].
“I’ve introduced a present day setting, but there are very masculine themes and characters from the original that are still very relevant,” Ayer told Variety.
“It’s not a Western anymore, but it still has the ‘Wild Bunch’ characters and the elements that made the original film so memorable,” producer Jerry Weintraub said.
