Apparently mining Alfred Hitchcock material is all the rage at the moment. Last week we learned that DreamWorks and Working Title are cooking up a new adaptation of Rebecca, and now Paramount is looking to adapt Suspicion. Hitchcock’s 1941 film was based on Francis Illes’s 1932 novel Before the Fact and starred Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant (Fontaine won an Oscar for her performance). Variety reports that Paramount has set Veena Sud, executive producer/showrunner of the AMC series The Killing, to pen the screenplay and direct.

The story centers on “a dowdy young woman” who marries an irresponsible charmer and then begins to suspect that her husband plans to kill her. The pic is Sud’s first foray into feature films, as her television career includes work on CBS’s Cold Case and ABC’s Push, Nevada. I enjoyed the first few episodes of The Killing, but the Twin Peaks similarities and reliance on red herrings became irksome. Sud is an undeniably talented writer, and it’ll be interesting to see her take on Suspicion. Whether Sud will be going back to the original novel or if the film is a straight remake of Hitchcock’s is unspecified. In any case, a synopsis for Illes’s book is included after the jump.

It looks like Will Smith has narrowed his many possible projects down to The City That Sailed or Men in Black 3.  After over a year of speculation, Variety reports that the actor will likely make one of the projects his next feature.  While, the plot of MIB 3 is unknown, we all know what kind of movie it will be: sci-fi action-adventure.  But The City that Sailed is an adventure-fantasy we first reported on back in July of last year.  Here’s what I wrote about back then:

Written by Andrew Niccol, the story follows a New York City street magician whose daughter, because of family circumstances (read: Daddy likes the whores), lives in England. In exploring a lighthouse one day, the girl discovers a room with magic candles and wishes to be reunited with her father, causing the island of Manhattan to break away and drift across the Atlantic, the magic candles apparently not having access to priceline.com or any comparable service.  I guess the other option is that she could just walk across…if it’s not too deep.

The “Daddy likes the whores,” was pure speculation on my part, but what was true is that Francis Lawrence, who teamed with Smith on I Am Legend, was to direct.  Now, that’s not the case and currently the project has yet to find a director.  Hit the jump to learn about all the other projects that were on Smith’s plate.

Latino Review reports that Alfred Hitchock’s Suspicion is getting remade with Will Smith attached to star and produce.  I agree with scooper “Pinche Taco” when it comes to Hitchcock: he can be imitated, but never remade…-ed.  For those who don’t know, Hitchcock’s 1941 film starred Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine and was about a woman (Fontaine) who marries a man (Grant) whom she eventually suspects is trying to kill her.  Hitchcock’s film had a compromised ending where the studio demanded a “happy” conclusion.  While I’m not crazy about remaking any Hitchcock movie (Disturbia is the best yet simply because it’s not terrible), Suspicion is not among the director’s best and there’s room to do a fresh take (which would be a re-adaptation of the source material, Francis Iles’ 1932 novel Before the Fact).

Smith would play the Grant role and I support it simply because I want to see if he can play a bad guy.  He certainly has the charm the role requires, but he’s never played anything close to villain so I’d like to see him challenge himself as an actor in that respect.  As long as they don’t have Smith committing suicide via jellyfish, there’s hope.

Then again, Smith may do another movie instead.  He has plenty to choose from.  Hit the jump for just a few of the films he may do next.