Welcome to just the latest round of Studio Announces Idea To Remake Classic Film And Hopes No One Has A Problem With That, which... well, we can predict the reaction. That isn't stopping Universal from planning a new take on 1955's The Night Of The Hunter.
The original, which featured a towering, terrifying performance from Robert Mitchum and was directed by Charles Laughton, follows a religious fanatic, con man and murderer who marries a widow, knowing that her deceased husband hid $10,000 from authorities following a bank robbery. The widow’s young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the money as the man plots more sinister ways to find where to find the cash.
Matt Orton, who wrote 2018's Operation Finale, is on board for the script duty (that side of filmmaking can still go on, since it doesn't require people to gather and most writers prefer to write alone anyway) and Variety reports that the plan is to set the story in contemporary times.
How – and indeed whether – this will go down remains to be seen, but for now, we'd recommend tracking down the original, a nailed-on five-star masterpiece. The 1991 TV movie remake starring Richard Chamberlain... not so much.