"My mother told me never to do this." Let's recast THE HITCHER anyway!

C Thoms Howell should be played by Jessica Biel.
Rutger Hauer should be played by Angelina Jolie.

I'd like to see Ryan Reynolds in the Jennifer Jason Leigh role, though any young hunk would do as long as they keep the truck scene.

I'd watch that. Kiefer would make a good Hitcher and he's fairly popular nowadays as "good guy" Jack Bauer, so it would bring an edge to it for the newer crowd.

I say that if they do change the Howell character into a woman bring on Jessica Biel. She was good in TCM 03, looked hot like the sun, and has ties to Bay's Platinum Dunes company. As for Hauer's role....Micky Rourke would be fucking awesome. Or maybe this could be Stallone's comback role...just a thought.

Rutger Hauer should be played by Rutger Hauer.
Bring him back, the world needs more Rutger!

No more Biel.

There is always room for Biel.

Ray Liotta.

Or if you want to go a younger route, how about Cillian Murphy as the Hitcher?

Liotta would be the best choice. But I would bring Hauer back to play the police captain.

I think a real problem this movie might have making Jim a female is coming up with a believable reason for a young woman to pick up an older male hitchhiker. You'd probably have to change it completely around and have a young woman break down and have to hitch a ride with a psycho. Or better yet keep it a young man, and make the Hitcher an extremely attractive and psychotic woman. That's about the only believable circumstance that I could see anybody actually picking up a hitchhiker these days.

Give some new blood a shot. No Keifer, no Billy Bob, they may be fine in their other roles, but I personally don't want horror movies that try to cast aroung some big name and write the script to cater to them. Biel's still not a character engrained in everyone's mind, so she would be OK still, and was a great asset to TCM remake, acting wise and for her other positive features. There's still plenty of great actors on the lesser face recognition list such as Cillian Murphy that someone suggested. Not saying I would cast him, but someone else with limited exposure and high upside. Leave the A-listers for romantic comedy and big budget action films that would suck without them (any many times with them), bring on the new and little recognized actors and let the directors craft a story that's not weighted down with all the celebrity hoopla. I'm probably not alone in skipping some movies just because I see the cast includes the same old boring lineup of actors straight out of the celebrity gossip column.

I guess my post would be more constructive if I actually made some suggestions rather than complain, so I'll shut up unless I have any.