It's been on the operating table since the autumn of 2011, but Sony's remake of Joel Schumacher's Flatliners has just received a re-animating jolt. The project now has a director, in the Danish form of Niels Arden Oplev.
Last we heard, this new version of the Brat Pack "classic" had been written by Ben Ripley (Source Code), although there may well have been further drafts of the screenplay since then. If you're unfamiliar with the original, it starred Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt, and involved medical students causing themselves all kinds of surreal mental anguish with their ill-advised near-death experiments.
Oplev's most recent gigs include the Stephen King adaptation Under The Dome for TV, and Dead Man Down, which stars Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace. Oplev has history with the latter: he's best known for helming the 2009 Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Oplev can boast an impressive track record in Scandinavia, having shepherded the International Emmy Award-winning series’ Unit One and The Eagle through development and into production; started the controversial Danish New Wave with the violent Portland in 1996; and directed the highest-grossing Danish film of 2006, We Shall Overcome, which won 30 awards.
Flatliners doesn't seem to have a start date yet, but is clearly now gaining momentum in its journey towards the light. We don't seem to have a release date for Dead Man Down in the UK, but it's out in the States at the start of next month.