Shawn Levy believes ‘Starman’ is one of the "finest films".
The 47-year-old Canadian film director – who will lead the production team on the remake of the 1984 fantasy film – has admitted he thinks the original production directed by John Carpenter is "brilliant" and the best film Carpenter ever created.
Speaking to Comingsoon.net, Levy said: "To me, I think it’s brilliant.
"It was an Oscar nomination for Jeff Bridges, it’s thick with ideas and incredibly rich with romantic feelings, and those are the things I’m going to carry over into this updated version. I don’t know why it’s kind of separate in the canon of Carpenter, but I think it’s magnificent. The premise is filled with ideas that are interesting to revisit in a different way in 2016. It fits less neatly in his genre legacy, but I think it’s absolutely one of his finest films."
And Levy hopes he can live up to the high expectations Carpenter set in his upcoming drama, and will include romantic and comedic elements from the previous version into his adaptation.
He explained: "I am going to try to be faithful to the romantic spine to the story but also the fish-out-of-water humour which is genuinely charming and winning in a way that Carpenter and Bridges filmed it.
"I haven’t done television in a long time, the movies have kept me really busy. I hadn’t done this genre or this tone. It came to me really organically and it’s definitely something I want to keep doing and ‘Starman’ is a very rich opportunity to do that."
Meanwhile, Shawn has teased he already knows who is in the running for the lead role – who was formerly played by Jeff Bridges – although he cannot reveal who just yet.
He teased: "I do [know the cast], but they would kill me at Sony if I mentioned it. I’ll just very enigmatically say that some of my top ideas are people I’ve worked with before either as a director or a producer."
Shawn Levy believes Starman is one of the ‘finest films’
