Ben Ripley, writer of the excellent Source Code
, has been tapped to pen a remake of Flatliners
, the 1990 thriller that is probably best remembered for it's stunning assemblage of talent. Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin(back when he mattered), Oliver Platt, and Hope Davis starred in the Joel Schumacher film about a group of students conducting a radical experiment to explore the afterlife by killing then reviving eachother. Think it goes terribly awry? Of course it does.I won't lie, I sorta loved this film back then. It had a hot group of young stars and a far out premise. It goes off the rails at the end but so what? It was twisted and fun. I'll be curious to see what approach Ripley takes, but honestly the idea doesn't need to be updated all that much. The original holds up pretty well.
This would be a perfect film to gather another group of young up 'n comers. Emma Stone in the Julia Roberts role would be sweet. [Deadline]
