Mja... Nu är väl Kopps inte skräck - men de andra lutar väl åt det hållet.SCI FI Wire | Swedish Horror Films To Get Remake
Director Mikael Håfström (1408) told SCI FI Wire that one of his well-known Swedish horror thrillers has been optioned to be remade with an American cast, as have a few of his other foreign films. But the Swedish helmer said that he has no interest in revisiting his own work.
In an interview, Håfström said his award-winning films, Strandvaskaren (The Drowning Ghost) and Ondskan (Evil) and his action comedy Kopps (Cops) will all eventually be made again by American studios.
"I don't think that there is anything that is different really about scaring an American audience or a Swedish audience, and I'm happy that Drowning Ghost and Evil, for example, have had a good reactions from American audiences," the director said. He previously directed Jennifer Aniston in Derailed, his first American film, and more recently John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson in the Stephen King horror story 1408, scheduled for release on June 22.
"I don't know if there's much that can be added to what I did, so I don't really want to do it again," Håfström added. "I know there are many studios in America that like to buy the remake rights to European and Japanese films and very few of them see the light of day. We'll see."
The Drowning Ghost (2004) tells the story of a brutal murder at a boarding school, where students start disappearing on the 100th anniversary of the unsolved crime.
Håfström's 2003 film Evil explored psychological cruelty (also at a boarding school) was nominated for best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards. Kopps deals with a small-town police station that may be closed because there is no crime, so the police create their own spate of criminal activity.
"Maybe in humor there is a difference in what cultures laugh at, but as a very general rule, what is scary works everywhere, and the cultural differences are not necessarily a problem," Håfström said. "If I make a film, I make it for me and not a specific audience in my little country or America."
