Even though we don’t think much of the idea of attempting to remake Sam Peckinpah’s ultimate and still controversial statement on masculinity and sexuality “Straw Dogs,” it does appear that director Rod Lurie isn’t toning down the material in the slightest.
Speaking to Collider at the Saturn Awards he reveals that while the blogosphere has been skeptical about how his film will stack up against the original, they will be in for a surprise: “…I keep reading blogs from people saying it’s going to be far less violent than the 1971 film [or that] the rape scene will be watered down. And those people are going to be shocked because this movie is hard R, it’s a tough movie.”
Driving the point home, Lurie says, “If you’re looking for the film to be less violent, less tense, less provocative, less controversial than the first you’re looking at the wrong film. It’s going to be very controversial.”
But don’t think that the film is just going to be a shot-for-shot remake of Peckinpah’s original, about a man who is forced to violently reckon with his own masculinity after his wife is brutally raped and he must defend his home against the perpetrators. Late last year, Alexander Skarsgard who stars in the film with James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, James Woods, Dominic Purcell and Willa Holland, revealed that Lurie’s film isn’t just a copy saying, “It’s a remake and it’s not. Rod Lurie wrote it and directed it, and you can’t just copy a Sam Peckinpah movie because there’s really no point in doing that. You have to add something and I think Rod did. What attracted me to it is that there’s also a love triangle drama there. My character had a history with Kate Bosworth’s character. They dated for many years, she leaves and she comes back ten years later with James Marsden’s character who’s a screenwriter from Hollywood. It’s a culture clash.”
While we’re still not convinced that turning the film into a what seems like a lover’s quarrel in the extreme is the way to go, we are getting slightly more intrigued, if only to see how Lurie builds up to what he says “is a very long 25-minute action sequence at the end of the movie.” We will say this, it does sound like Peckinpah himself would do.
As for when this will come out, it remains to be seen. Earlier this year, it was revealed that the film, originally set for a March 2011 release, was going to be released on September 16, 2011 but Lurie says the release date is still “hazy” so perhaps it will change again? Either way, our pendulum on this is swinging from dismissive to curious; you can watch the full interview with Lurie below.