The American remake of the acclaimed Icelandic footage film is no longer in production. Originally directed by André Øvredal in 2010, the remake was to have been produced by Chris Columbus (Mrs Doubtfire, Goonies, Percy Jackson) and his production company 1492 Pictures, with Neil Marshall (Game Of Thrones, Centurion, Doomsday) at the helm. The original film told the story of a group of students who are on the trail of a killer, linked to a slew of bear killings, who is actually a Troll Hunter.
In an interview with BirthMoviesDeath.com, Øvredal explained what had been going on with the Remake's production.
"I don’t know exactly," he explains in the interview, "I was very happy with what I read; I never communicated with anybody about it, but I read on-line that Neil Marshall was attached to direct it, and I was like, ‘OK, I can get behind that,’ and then suddenly it didn’t happen. I believe that just after signing up for Troll Hunter, Neil got too busy with Game of Thrones, and that’s what stopped it; that seems to be the case, anyway, and then it just kind of died.”
The rights for 'Troll Hunter' have since reverted back to the original producers, and there is no new remake on the table.
Meanwhile, Øvredal´s new film, 'The Autopsy of Jane Doe', premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on September 9, with a VOD release slated for December 21.
The film deals with a father and son duo of coroners who investigate the corpse of a young woman. However, upon closer inspection, they find clues as to a possibly supernatural phenomena. Marshall, meanwhile, has recently directed an episode of 'Westworld', and is set to direct the Netflix reboot of the iconic 1965 science fiction television series, 'Lost In Space'. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (Gods of Egypt, The Last Witch Hunter) will take showrunning duties on the series, with John Williams as composer. He has also been working on a new adaptation of 'Dracula', entitled 'The Last Voyage Of The Demeter', though no new details have surfaced since 2015.