Getty/Everett/Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd & Tiger Aspect Productions Ltd
EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures has pre-emptively acquired a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock-directed 1958 psychological thriller Vertigo, in which Robert Downey Jr. keeps eye on the James Stewart lead role of the former cop, coerced after a service trauma that leaves him afraid of heights is to withdraw and dizziness. The screenplay will be written by See and Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, who has just signed on to write a Star Wars film.
Davis Entertainment’s John Davis and John Fox are producing with Team Downey’s Robert and Susan Downey.
Paramount was the home of the original film, and the Hitchcock Estate favored the studio as the landing pad for it. The original was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor from the Boileau-Narcejac novel D’entre les morts (From Among the Dead).
After being put on hold by his affliction, the police detective is hired by an acquaintance to shadow his wife, who he believes is behaving erratically. The film was the first to use the dolly zoom, an in-camera device that distorts perspective to create disorientation and put the audience in the cop’s state of fear of heights.
Team Downey has Perry Mason in HBO’s second season, and Downey stars in the Park Chan-wook-directed The Sympathizer for A24 and HBO. Davis Entertainment is on Harold and the Purple Crayon and Uglies.
Downey is represented by WME, Joy Fehily and Hansen Jacobson; Knight is CAA and Nelson Davis.