While the idea of remaking the Dudley Moore comedy classic Arthur still fills us with no small amount of dread, it seems to be gathering decent laugh-generating folk as it marches to the screen. Russell Brand is still signed on to take the lead, The Day Today/Borat veteran Peter Baynham is scripting and now Jason Winer has been hired to direct the film.
Winer might not exactly be an old hand behind a film camera yet – Arthur would be his first motion picture job – but he’s spent the last few years honing his craft on American telly, most recently winning a Directors Guild award for Modern Family, one of the better sitcoms to happen along in ages.
We don’t yet know how closely the new Arthur will hew to the original’s plotline – about a drunken rich playboy who scandalises his family when he eschews plans to marry a rich heiress to romance the working class girl he loves – and there’s been no word on whether the rumours about Meryl Streep being offered the role of the character’s butler (played to perfection by John Gielgud before), but we’re slightly more hopeful for the final product.