After floating around in limbo for a long time, it looks like the remake of 1966 Michael Caine/Shirley MacLaine caper Gambit is finally getting sucked through the plughole of production, with a company called Crime Scene Pictures stepping up to finance the film and director Michael Hoffman jumping aboard.
Hoffman last brought us Tolstoy drama The Last Station, but he’s only the latest director attached to remake Gambit – Doug Liman has, among others, been linked with the project in the past.
In the original, Caine had the role of a cat burglar who hatches a complicated scheme to relieve a billionaire of a priceless statue. His plan includes finding a woman who is a lookalike for the man’s dead wife. He strikes gold in MacLaine’s waitress, but the job gets complicated when the criminal pair falls in love.
While this could all too easily activate the Michael Caine Remake curse that struck Alfie, Sleuth and Get Carter, it does at least boast a script by Joel and Ethan Coen, which means that it has a strong starting point…