Deadline has discovered that Sony subsidiary Screen Gems recently came across a remake of the 1965 thriller BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING in Sony's vault of abandoned projects and have put the remake back into development.
The 1965 version of BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING was directed by Otto Preminger and starred Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley, and Keir Dullea. Modell's story centers on
a mother who comes to pick up her daughter Bunny from school only to find her missing. She and her brother begin looking for the child and eventually call the police. When the police start investigating, they can’t find any evidence of a child ever living at the home and learn that Bunny was the name of the mother’s imaginary childhood friend. It’s not clear whether the mother is crazy or she is being set up by someone who is gaslighting her.
This is actually a situation where you can debate whether or not the project should be referred to as a "remake", since the films are based on a novel by Merriam Modell. So if you prefer, you could call this update a "new adaptation"… Legally, however, it is a remake, and the remake rights were held by Columbia and Otto Preminger Films. Preminger's daughter Victoria Preminger is expected to receive a producer credit on the new film, alongside Adam Fields, who dug the project out of the vault.
Preminger and Fields worked together to locate Modell's son so they could secure the rights to the book in certain foreign territories. Eric Paquette is overseeing the project for Screen Gems.
For me, this announcement stirs up some disappointment, because it reminds me that Joe Carnahan was attached to direct a version of BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING that was supposed to start filming in 2007. The project fell apart (and got tossed into that vault) when star Reese Witherspoon dropped out the month before production was set to begin. BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING became another of the several Carnahan projects that have been announced only to fall through over the years, and it's a bummer that there are so many potential Carnahan films we're never going to see.
There's no indication that Screen Gems is thinking of bringing Carnahan back to BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING now that the remake is in development again. No writer or director has been announced, but word is that Screen Gems is planning to add a "new twist" into the story that involves divorce and child custody.