While writing about the death of Rosemary's Baby I missed something important, and why not after all that was one hell of an exciting and happy story. I missed the news about The Birds remake, which to balance it off is some very unexciting and depressing news.

The remake continues, and with the big names attached that have been rumoured before, would you believe it.

Andrew Form and Bradley Fuller, the producers at the remake production house of Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes, have revealed where the project is at, and it's doing nothing but moving forward.

To start with there's a strong defence of what they're doing, and a reveal of just where they are, awaiting a script that's due to arrive very soon.

"We're expecting a script in the next 2-3 weeks, but...it's not like Drew, Michael and I think that we're just going to c**p all over Alfred Hitchcock's movie...I mean, Alfred Hitchcock in a company-wide opinion is probably the greatest director of what we do and other things too.

And as someone, who at least Michael and I studied in college...there's a reverence for him. So that's not a movie that we're just going to step up and just go have birds attacking people...If we can't make that movie unique or add something to it, I don't think we're going to make it."

The Birds is a classic film which tells the story of a small village where the local birds suddenly become aggressive towards humans and seemingly become organised in their attacks against the local population. Behind this is the story of a couple meeting for the first time and being drawn to each other before plunging into this nightmare.

It's a very effective story told by the excellent director Hitchcock. However this new version is setting out to explain why the birds attack, and it sounds very much like The Host (Filmstalker review) or The Happening (Filmstalker review) in its explanations - we're the cause, environmental issues, and they've had enough.

While I think a little explanation might have been good, I do believe this just lessens what the film achieved, for a lot of the fear is the confusion of why, the almost absurdity of what is happening, and yet if this did just how real and scary these scenes of attack could be.

We already heard that the Naomi Watts rumour was true when the producers confirmed that she was interested in the role, but this is confirmation that she is on board, and that's positive in itself because before it was said that she was not going to commit without a script, and I presume that script is reading well.

Previously we also heard that Martin Campbell was in talks to direct, and after his success with Casino Royale (Filmstalker review) this seemed a strange choice, however it now seems it is his choice.

From the article in Collider through Digital Spy, who don't give Collider a link to their source and I assume it was the same as yesterday's story:

"Once you get a filmmaker like Martin Campbell and start talking to an actress like Naomi Watts, a project can pick up momentum...But they're not interested in making the same movie that Hitchcock made."

So Campbell is definitely on board it would seem, and Watts is still very much interested, but there's still a suggestion that she's not fully signed up for the project just yet. Is she still waiting to read that completed script? I sure as hell would be, after all this is very dodgy ground for a remake, if they thought Near Dark and Rosemary's Baby were hard to do, where are their heads for a Hitchcock classic?