Netflix is making a new movie classic and rebooting Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 French adventure thriller The wages of fear.
Julien Leclercq, a French action director whose credits include the 2010 hijacking thriller The attack2021 sentinel starring Olga Kurylenko and the Netflix crime series Ganglandswill adapt the original film along with his Ganglands co-author Hamid Hlioua.
Franck Gastambide, Alban Lenoir, Ana Girardot and Sofiane Zermani have signed on to star in the new, as-yet-untitled remake, coming to Netflix worldwide next year.
“To reunite this cast for the reboot of such a film, for a worldwide broadcast with Netflix, forces me to put all my heart and guts into it,” said Leclercq. “The ambition is huge.”
Leclercq and Julien Madon will produce the film for Netflix through Labyrinthe Films and TF1 Studio.
Poster for the original ‘Wages of Fear’ (1953)
Photo by LMPC via Getty Images
Clouzot and directed and co-wrote the original Wages of fear together with his brother Jean, after the novel of the same name by Georges Arnaud. The 1953 original won both the Berlinale’s Golden Bear for best film and the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as a BAFTA for best film.
William Friedkin adapted the story, about four desperate men who agree to risk their lives to transport gallons of nitroglycerin through the jungles of Latin America under dangerously unsafe conditions, for his 1977 cult film wizard.
International and arthouse movie classics have become a popular new source of intellectual property for streamers. Amazon has adapted David Cronenberg’s 1988 psychological thriller Dead Ringers, about gynecologist twins, as a limited series, starring Rachel Weisz in the double lead role. Peacock and Sky recently announced a “reimagining” of Fred Zinnemann’s 1973 thriller classic The day of the jackalstarring Eddie Redmayne.
