Green Offers Updates on Suspiria Remake, Freaks of the Heartland

Green has been talking about reworking Dario Argento’s Suspiria for many years, even suggesting that he would do it with Natalie Portman, but when that film’s backer Fox Searchlight released Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, another psychological thriller taking place in the world of ballet and also starring Portman, many thought that may have taken some of the wind out of those sails.

“No, that adds to it,” Green disagreed during an interviewer earlier this week. “That means there’s an audience for prestige in genre, and to me, that’s exciting. We’re really close to getting that movie made if I can get over a couple more budgetary hurdles I think I can pull it off. My version doesn’t really have any similarities to “Black Swan,” but it proves to the marketplace that you can take a great risk and you can have something that has great artistic ambition, but also has incredible commercial appeal.”

He also mentioned that he’s still developing a film based on the Steve Niles and Greg Ruth graphic novel Freaks of the Heartland, but may instead go for an animated version of it if they can’t get the financing needed to do it live action.

“Geoff Davey and Pete Sattler, two of my good friends from film school adapted it,” he told us. “It’s just a real gothic kind of strange coming of age story, a story about a kid who’s brother has a deformity and the strange ‘Twilight Zone’ kind of secrets to this community, but it’s a really beautiful, heartfelt story. Like anything, it’s just a matter of having to finance an expensive movie because it’s got creatures but it’s starring kids that aren’t going to be huge movie stars. Who’s going to write those checks? Or what kind of compromises or reinventions can you do? Right now, I’m talking to the artist and writer about maybe potentially doing an animated version of it or trying to come up with some way outside of what we’ve already conceived to bring it to life because it’s really an incredible story.”

Look for the full interview with Green over on ComingSoon.net. The Sitter opens nationwide on Friday, December 9.