Neil LaBute on the Decision to Remake The Wicker Man: LaBute says, “Why not? It’s a movie that I found intriguing when I was younger. I thought it was a great story but one of those that could legitimately afford to be, not messed with, but to have a very different take on it. I think coming from theater, I’m very used to interpretations of a play that I have written or trying to interpret somebody else’s play. I almost directed Hamlet recently and so many people have taken that on that why do it again? Well, why not? It’s material that you like and you have some take on it.
I don’t want to try and find a Christopher Lee and do it the same way. It’s something that I actually have an idea for moving it into a different entity. Obviously, it retains the spirit of the first one but then becomes its own picture. So, for me, I guess it’s just more natural than for some – the idea of reinterpreting something. A lot of [Anthony] Shaffer’s screenplay made sense for me. The way he proceeds as a police procedural, it made sense. But I had a very different way I wanted that island to be, and his connection to it to be, so I felt like I had a legitimately new avenue to stroll down.”
Retaining Elements from the Original Film: According to writer/director LaBute, all the ‘good stuff’ is in the 2006 version of the film. “All the good bits and none of the music. None of the songs are still in there. It’s a straight score in the movie, rather than any kind of folky songs that existed in the original.
I loved the way in which the investigation took place. I loved the ending. It’s really the ending a lot of people when they say, ‘I love The Wicker Man,’ they’re talking about that kind of amazingly horrific ending. That’s, I guess, really the thing that allows that movie to get plunked down in the horror genre as often it does. Because it’s sort of an anti-horror movie in many ways. It takes place a lot during the daytime. It doesn’t have a central killer or monster or the kinds of things that we think of as being necessary to make a horror movie. So I liked all of that. How could I also make a movie that’s scary, you know, or at least creepy, during the daytime? How could I make that interesting? Those elements remained, but the way in which that character’s connected to the island - the patriarchy, which I have kind of turned into a matriarchy - all of those things are ways in which I saw to reimagine that material. To talk about something that was outside of the kind of really Christian versus Pagan-type deal of the first film and look at something that I had been working on a lot in my own writing: the idea of gender politics which are certainly, arguably, have been around as long if not longer than the concerns of the first movie.”
LaBute continued, “So all those things led me to say I have a way in which I can do this that keeps that spirit of the original and creates a different movie. People just generally in life like to compare and contrast ‘is this better or worse’ or ‘what’s different.’ But I think there’s no reason you can’t like both of them. You can’t say, ‘I like what the original had and I like the direction of this one, too.’ Inevitably people will look at it and say, ‘I like this,’ or, ‘Don’t.’ Some people sort of because it’s a kind of cult film, the more rabid fans may not even give it that time of day. They may say, You know what? I don’t care if it’s good, I don’t want you to touch it.’ That’s a hard nut to crack. You kind of have to look at that and go, ‘That’s not the audience I’m trying to reach,’ because I don’t think that I can. They won’t reach you half way. But I think anybody who does will look at it and enjoy the ride and say, ‘I recognize the ride and yet you’ve done quite a lot to it to make it different.’”
Page 2: Neil LaBute on Nicolas Cage's Involvement and Changing the Dynamics
