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Exclusive: Lindqvist 'cautiously positive' about Let The Right One In remake - SciFiNow

Exclusive: Lindqvist ‘cautiously positive’ about Let The Right One In remake

John Aldqvist, the author of Let The Right One In and the scribe behind the screenplay of the subsequent film adaptation, which is currently receiving rave reviews, has said that he doesn’t feel the same hostility towards the remake of the Swedish-language film that many commentators have expressed.

lettherightoneinJohn Lindqvist, the author of Let The Right One In and the scribe behind the screenplay of the subsequent film adaptation, which is currently receiving rave reviews (including a five-star award in SciFiNow), has said that he doesn’t feel the same hostility towards the Matt Reeves-directed remake of the Swedish-language film that many commentators have expressed.

“I’m cautiously positive,” Lindqvist told us in a telephone interview earlier this morning. “Because I saw Cloverfield about a month before [Reeves’] name even came up, before I knew he was going to make it, and I really liked that movie. I thought it was an original take on a worn-out theme, so I thought ‘Okay, he has some original thinking, he knows what he wants’.” The author’s respect for the relatively new director, who shot to fame with the aforementioned monster feature early last year, doesn’t just extend to his previous work, however, but also to his handling of the story. “We emailed each other a few times… I think he has a very… he has a personal relationship with this story, and he really wants to convey this story to the screen, which I think is a much better approach than just trying to remake the Swedish movie. He’s making a re-adaptation from scratch, working from the book.”

Reeves’ version of the film, now simply entitled Let Me In, is already markedly different from Tomas Alfredson’s take on the source material. The film will be set in Reagan-era Colorado environs, a far cry from the Swedish, urban locale of the first outing that had a direct resonance with the author’s own childhood. The film is set for an autumn 2010 release date, and a second draft of the screenplay has been completed while the production searches for its two 12-year-old leads. Lindqvist is happy to let them get on with their own development and execution of the project, however, not out of respect for the Swedish version (which he says, upon seeing the first seven minutes of, he burst into tears “because it was so perfect”) but for a more personal motive. “No, no, [I’m not involved]. I mean he’s written and asked me a few things, but apart from that no. And I wouldn’t want that, I said from the out that I don’t want to have any part of the American version because there’d just be too many phone calls.”

Let The Right One In is released on 3 August 2009 on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK through Momentum Pictures.