Netflix to Remake French Adventure Classic ‘The Wages of Fear’

Netflix is taking a swing at another film classic, rebooting the Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 French adventure thriller The Wages of Fear.

Julien Leclercq, a French action director whose credits include 2010’s hijacking thriller The Assault, 2021’s Sentinelle starring Olga Kurylenko, and the Netflix crime series Ganglands, will adapt the original film, together with his Ganglands co-writer Hamid Hlioua.

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Franck Gastambide, Alban Lenoir, Ana Girardot and Sofiane Zermani have signed on to star in the new, currently untitled, remake, which will roll out on Netflix worldwide next year.

“To reunite this cast for the reboot of such a film, for a worldwide broadcast with Netflix, forces me to put all my heart and guts into it,” said Leclercq. “The ambition is huge.”

Leclercq and Julien Madon will produce the film for Netflix via Labyrinthe Films and TF1 Studio.

Clouzot and directed and co-wrote the original Wages of Fear together with his brother Jean, based on the eponymous novel by Georges Arnaud. The 1953 original won both the Berlinale’s Golden Bear for best film and the Cannes film festival’s grand prize, as well as a BAFTA for best film.

William Friedkin adapted the story, about four desperate men who agree to risk their lives to transport gallons of nitroglycerin in dangerously-unsafe conditions across the jungles of Latin America, for his 1977 cult film Sorcerer.

International and art-house film classics have become a popular new source of intellectual property for streamers. Amazon has adapted David Cronenberg’s 1988 psychological thriller Dead Ringers, about twin gynecologists, as a limited series, featuring Rachel Weisz in the dual leading role. Peacock and Sky recently announced a “reimagining” of Fred Zinnemann’s 1973 thriller classic The Day of the Jackal, with Eddie Redmayne in the lead role.

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