Because, what the hell, Mickey Rourke is all in the news now, right? And The Wrestler isn’t enough to justify breaking Zalman King out of hyphenate jail to remake 9 1/2 Weeks, so let’s have a bridge film. Angel Heart it is! Variety reports that Michael De Luca has joined forces with Alison Rosenzweig and Michael Gaeta to assemble a remake from human remains deemed unfit for medical use and an old water pump they found behind a shed in Baton Rouge. They’ve got both the film remake rights and an option for the novel Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg, upon which the movie was based.
The trade notes that De Luca has produced films like (you’ll love being reminded of these) 21 and Ghost Rider, the latter being a little bit, sorta, almost like Angel Heart. Not really. Both have fire. That shortlist is slightly disingenuous, though, because as production prez at New Line De Luca got more than a few good films made.
This is more bizarre than it is anything to consider too heavily. Angel Heart, a sort of supernatural detective story, is a movie that works almost in spite of itself. Every time I see it I’m surprised that it comes together as well as it does (and it is by no means seamless) so the idea that lightning could strike twice so directly is, I think, far fetched. Take away the cast (Rourke, De Niro, even Lisa Bonet) and there’s still a good story framework. But it’s not Angel Heart. If this trio comes up with a writer who can mold the same raw novel material into something a little bit different, maybe we’ll have another unexpected supernatural noir to enjoy. Or maybe it’ll just be a collection of parts.