In Fear director Jeremy Lovering talks The Changeling remake

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Very few movies genuinely creep me out. One film that really did a number on me was Peter Medak's 1980 classic THE CHANGELING, starring George C. Scott. More recently I was unnerved by the pulse-pounding tension from director Jeremy Lovering's IN FEAR, which is now in release. So it was with much excitement that I heard that Lovering is thinking about tackling a remake of THE CHANGELING as I feel that if there absolutely has to be a remake of the haunted house classic, Lovering may be the right man for the job.

Speaking with our brothers-in-blood at Fangoria, Lovering shared that he has recently completed a treatment for his potential remake of THE CHANGELING, but has yet to decide if it is a project he wants to see through, sharing…

“I’m really nervous about it, for obvious reasons. The original is an extraordinarily good film, and I’ve tried to take a kind of alternative point of view—doing the scenes you don’t see, the ones in between those that are in the film. THE CHANGELING has such iconic, much-copied sequences, and obviously loads of directors, from James Wan to [THE WOMAN IN BLACK’s] James Watkins and a whole bunch of others, happily acknowledge THE CHANGELING as a massively influential film. It’s the same producers [as the original] who want to make it, and it has been a very interesting process, but I’m still trying to decide whether it’s the right thing to do or not.”

It's refreshing to hear that Lovering has enough respect for the original to question whether or not a remake should happen. However, A CHANGELING update has been in the air for some time, and Lovering notes…

“There was a screenplay in existence that they had already commissioned. They sent me that draft and it’s very well-written, but it’s not the film I want to make. THE CHANGELING is one of the few movies that genuinely scared me, and it still does, so I didn’t want to touch it at first. But then I started conversations with them, and told them I didn’t feel the script. I want to re-engage with it in a different way, and they told me to go write my own screenplay. I was like, ‘I’ll just write a treatment, because I don’t know if it’s gonna work for me,’ and I literally delivered it the other day."

Lovering is still weighing whether or not to go forward with the remake and it is a decision that he is not taking lightly, telling Fango:

"It’s a tough decision. I mean, would you remake THE CHANGELING? It’s a tough call, and I’m not taking it lightly. You’ve gotta find that reason. I mean, LET ME IN was a good remake of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, and I think Martin Scorsese’s CAPE FEAR is just as great as the first one. But why he did it, I actually don’t know. What made him decide to do a remake? Maybe I should write and ask him, because he loves THE CHANGELING so much. He might just go, ‘Are you insane?’ We shall see. If I just did it as a cut-and-paste, there’d be no point, but if I can bring it to a new audience, then maybe it could work.”

I'm confident that if Lovering takes the helm on the remake he'll deliver something truly scary. How do you feel about a remake of THE CHANGELING? Hit us with your thoughts below.

Alice Englert in Loverings IN FEAR