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SYFY WIRE remakes

Warner Bros. bites on remake of 1983's sexy vampire cult classic 'The Hunger' with 'True Blood' vet Angela Robinson

By Josh Weiss
The Hunger 1983

Vampires are so hot right now. According to Deadline, Warner Bros. is hopping aboard the blood-sucking train with a remake of 1983's cult horror classic, The Hunger. Angela Robinson, a former writer and executive producer on HBO's True Blood, is in final talks to direct the modern retelling from a screenplay by Jessica Sharzer (NerveAmerican Horror Story). Given her experience with sexy vampires, Robinson seems like the perfect person to oversee the remake.

Warner Bros. did not immediately respond to SYFY WIRE's request for comment

Marking the directorial debut of the late Tony Scott (Top Gun), the original movie starred Catherine Deneuve as Miriam Blaylock, a vampire attempting to provide her lover, John Mayblock (David Bowie), with eternal life. To unlock the secret to immortality, Miriam seduces gerontologist, Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon).

Based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Whitley Strieber, The Hunger was not a box office success, only managing about $6 million worldwide. Reviews weren't much better (for instance, Roger Ebert described it as an "agonizingly bad vampire movie" at the time), with the film currently holding a 55 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

"The movie [is] very representative of a very specific time and was important when it came out," Sarandon told Vulture in 2014. "I think Tony did a great job as a first try. I wish the editor had been a little more aggressive on the whole … I don’t know how much money they spent on the special effects, but they definitely wanted to make sure they got their money’s worth, and I felt like that could have been cut down. That part in the film seemed to go on and on, but that’s my only criticism."

Scott was a little more blunt in a Top Gun-related interview done before his death in 2012. "Hollywood hated it," he said. "[It was] an artsy fartsy, esoteric, up itself vampire movie. I think they thought it was too artsy, too dark, too slow."

Like plenty of releases from the '80s however, The Hunger, has found a sizable cult following, particularly within the Goth subculture, over the last 38 years.