‘Flatliners’ Remake Eyes Ellen Page

The idea of a Flatliners remake inspires mixed feelings: it is both predictable in our ongoing remake- and nostalgia-driven pop culture landscape, and...kind of confusing, since we basically already had a remake of Flatliners earlier this year with The Lazarus Effect. But that film was fairly underwhelming, so perhaps a straight remake of the ’90s classic will succeed where The Lazarus Effect failed, starting with the casting of Ellen Page.

Variety reports that Sony is eyeing Page to play the role originated by Julia Roberts in Joel Schumacher’s 1990 sci-fi thriller Flatliners. The original film centered on a group of medical students convinced to kill and immediately revive their peer (Kiefer Sutherland) in an attempt to definitively prove or disprove the existence of an afterlife. As the team pushes their experiments further and further, they are faced with some deadly — and paranormal — consequences.

This year’s disappointing horror-thriller The Lazarus Effect had a very, very similar plot which worked to much lesser effect, featuring a cast of actors who do not typically appear in horror projects, including Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde and Donald Glover.

The new, official Flatliners remake sounds a bit more promising — Niels Arden Oplev is directing from a screenplay by Ben Ripley. Oplev directed the original Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its subsequent miniseries, and he recently directed the first episode of the hit USA series Mr. Robot, for which he also acts as producer.

Page appears next opposite Julianne Moore in LGBT rights drama Freeheld, and opposite Evan Rachel Wood in the upcoming thriller Into the Forest.