You’re writer/director Matt Reeves and you’ve just finished your first big monster movie for the next generation Cloverfield. The movie was pretty well received and ended up making a decent amount of money, which is good. Now, you’ve got to figure out what to do next. Apparently, according to the LA Times, it didn’t take Reeves very long to make that decision.
According to an interview with the paper, Reeves is gearing up to make an English language version of the Swedish vampire thriller Let the Right One In. The film, which is the story of a lonely 12-year-old boy who realizes the kind girl who moved in next door is actually a vampire, was shown to Reeves before it was released with the intent of gauging his interest in a remake. According to the paper, he had a lot of interest.
“I was just hooked,” Reeves said in the interview. “I was so taken with the story and I had a very personal reaction. It reminded me a lot of my childhood, with the metaphor that the hard times of your pre-adolescent, early adolescent moment, that painful experience is a horror.”
As for reaction from fans of the original film who are concerned about the “Americanization” of it? “There’s definitely people who have a real bull’s-eye on the film,” Reeves said in the interview, “and I can understand because of people’s’ love of the [original] film that there’s this cynicism that I’ll come in and trash it, when in fact I have nothing but respect for the film. I’m so drawn to it for personal and not mercenary reasons, my feeling about it is if I didn’t feel a personal connection and feel it could be its own film, I wouldn’t be doing it. I hope people give us a chance.”
Reeves recently finished a second draft of the script, now known as Let Me In, and is also scouting locations. He expects to begin filming later this year for a 2010 release.
