Walter Hill to Remake 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?'

One of cinema's great dysfunctional sister acts, Jane and Blanche Hudson, are returning to the silver screen.

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Walter Hill is planning to write and direct a remake of 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which was directed by Robert Aldrich and famously starred rival acting legends Bette Davis, as the former child star Baby Jane Hudson, and Joan Crawford as her crippled sister Blanche.

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Hill has struck a partnership agreement with the Aldrich Co. and will share producing credit with Adell Aldrich, daughter of the late Robert Aldrich. Hill will adapt the screenplay from Lukas Heller’s screenplay for the original film, which in turn was based on Henry Farrell’s novel.

The announcement is sure to trigger lots of speculation over which current actresses can step into the roles so vividly created by Davis and Crawford. “The two equal leads demand great performers – that is a given,” Hills said. “The intensity of the gothic storyline makes a reconfiguration of the drama still a potentially searing experience. The idea is to make a modern film without modernizing the period. It needs to resonate the golden age of Hollywood.”

The novel also was adapted into a 1991 television movie that starred real-life sisters Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave as, respectively, Blanche and Jane.

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Hill, repped by ICM and Bloom, Hergott, Diemer, most recently directed the action thriller Bullet to the Head, starring Sylvester Stallone, which Warners will release in February. The Aldrich Co. was repped by Eric Weissmann.