Here we go again: yet another literary classic is set to undergo a "fresh take as a Victorian-era action adventure", with Dark Horse Comics' forthcoming The Strange Case of Hyde** getting the screenplay treatment from Cole Haddon (who also wrote the in-development Sinbad epic Thieves of Baghdad). Skydance Productions are setting it up with Paramount.
Obviously enough, it's a riff on Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in which good-guy scientist Dr Jekyll attempts to create a formula to rope off the evil in the human mind, and ends up unleashing an id monster he can't control. Except that doesn't seem to be the plan here, with Haddon insisting that Hyde is *not *a retelling of the original tale.
"It's a fresh take," says Haddon. ""I'm excited to be playing a part in restoring Mr Hyde to his proper place in the pantheon of movie monsters: at the top of the food chain. He's one of my favorite literary villains, but he hasn't been given his due on the big screen for the better part of a century."
Arguably true we suppose, although we quite like **Mary Reilly **(1996, with John Malkovich as Jekyll and Hyde) and we're very fond of I, Monster (1971, with Christopher Lee), The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll (1960, with Paul Massie), and Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971 again, with Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick... ahem).
But even if it were the case that we hadn't had a decent Hyde since Fredric March, Haddon is not alone in wanting to rectify the situation. This is now the fourth potential Strange Case in the works, joining a queue that also includes versions by Abel Ferrara, Guillermo Del Toro and Dennis Iliadis. The latter is the closest to reaching screens, since it has a director (Iliadis replacing Nicholas Winding Refn last spring) and a star (Keanu Reeves) attached, and a complete script by Revolutionary Road's Justin Haythe.
Is there room for yet another take. And will it work as a Victorian action adventure? Did nobody learn anything from LXG or Van Helsing?