Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese’s planned remake of Cape Fear is set to star Javier Bardem, it’s been revealed.
The first ever television collaboration between cinema giants, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg is moving forwards with a mighty casting announcement: Javier Bardem will be taking the lead role in an upcoming small screen remake of Cape Fear.
The report, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, states that Bardem will take on the role of the unhinged stalker Max Cady, the narrative’s charismatic but psychopathic antagonist. Bardem’s casting sees him join a short but distinguished list of actors who have graced the role: Robert Mitchum played Cady in the 1962 film and Robert De Niro portrayed the character in Scorsese’s pulpy 1991 take.
We’d imagine that Bardem was one of the very first casting suggestions to spring to mind. His take on the equally menacing antagonist Anton Chigurh in 2007’s No Country For Old Men gave us one of cinema’s most disturbingly frightening killers of the 21st century.
Given that this new take on Cape Fear is said to be using John D MacDonald’s source novel The Executioners for a slightly different angle, Bardem’s proven ability to perfectly draw the essence of an antagonist from the pages of the source material (Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel in the case of No Country For Old Men) is surely part of the reason why the actor seems like such a great fit for the part.
No other casting for the film has yet been announced although we’re keen to see who will be playing the members of the Bowden family, the characters who Cady terrorises when he is released from prison. The new version ‘will zero in on modern day true crime obsession’ and put the Bowdens, a married pair of attorneys in the midst of a storm, when Cady escapes from prison, blaming them for his incarceration.
Scorsese’s film is memorable for its weird erotic charge, a tone that often made the film feel like the director paying homage to his contemporary, Brian De Palma. We’re hoping that Nick Antosca (of The Ant fame), the one doing the hands-on executive producing and showrunning, will bring some kind of edginess to the new take. Not necessarily the same feeling as Scorsese’s take of course, but something that makes it both compelling and disturbing in equal measure.
Bardem’s casting certainly feels like a step towards achieving this. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
