Gone Girl's David Fincher, Ben Affleck and Gillian Flynn reteaming for STRANGERS ON A TRAIN remake

Just the other day, author/screenwriter Gillian Flynn was saying that she would only consider penning a Gone Girl sequel if the whole band got back together again, and today that wish has almost become a reality. But not for a Gone Girl sequel, something much cooler sounding.

Deadline is reporting that Flynn is actually teaming up again with director David Fincher and star Ben Affleck for a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 classic Strangers On a Train for Warner Bros. The original film, based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1950 novel of the same name, starred Farley Granger as tennis star Guy Haines and Robert Walker charming psychopath Bruno Anthony, who accidentally meet on a train and begin talking. It turns out that both men want somebody in their lives removed – in the case of Haines, its his character’s vulgar wife, allowing him to marry his actual true love, and for Anthony, it’s his father – and so Anthony concocts a plan for the perfect murder. Both men will murder the other’s target, as since neither has link or motive to the other’s life at all, it would be the least suspicious arrangements. Of course, this being a Hitchcock psychological thriller, things don’t quite go to plan.

This new version, which Gillian Flynn will pen, is said to be a straight beat-for-beat remake, as we’ve seen with some of Hitchcock’s other films, but rather is a contemporary reimagining with a cool twist:

This one might be best titled Strangers On A Plane, as Affleck will play a variation of the role played by Farley Granger of a tennis pro who is bored with his marriage and wants to get divorced but instead gets entwined with a wealthy socialite psycho who proposes the notion of exchanging murders. The twist here is a compelling one. Affleck will play a movie star in the middle of a campaign for an Oscar during awards season whose private plane breaks down and is given a ride to LA on another plane by a wealthy stranger.

Ooh, meta! Fincher’s work is generally nothing else if not layered, so a story with such real-world leanings is really right up his alley. He actually said that he hired Ben Affleck for Gone Girl specifically because Affleck has personally experienced what it felt like to go from being the public golden boy to hounded by the press and badmouthed at every turn. This premise strikes even closer to home (not that Affleck wants a stranger to marry Jennifer Garner, at least that we know of!), and could be prime fodder for Fincher and Flynn to work their trademark messed-up magic.

And apparently we won’t have to wait too long for this remake to happen, as Affleck, who is also producing, apparently reshuffling his schedule so that he can actually film this between directing Live By Night later this year and his Justice League commitments in early 2016.

Last Updated: January 15, 2015