'STEPFATHER' remake casts its leads
Nip/Tuck's Dylan Walsh stars with Sela Ward in Screen Gems's remake of the Terry O'Quinn horror classic.
Screen Gems has given Dylan Walsh (Nip/Tuck) the unenviable task of assuming the role originated brilliantly by Terry O’Quinn (Lost) in the 1987 thriller The Stepfather, reports Variety's MICHAEL FLEMING. In the remake, Walsh will play the title character, a Father-Knows-Best type who marries a woman (Sela Ward, The Fugitive) with a suspicious son (Penn Badgley, a gender-switch from the original's Jill Schoelen) who discovers that his new stepdad murdered his previous family.
Using a script by J.S. Cardone (The Forsaken), director Nelson McCormick (the Prom Night remake) plans to shoot the revamp as more of a Hitchcock-style thriller than its horrific progenitor. Adrianne Palicki (Smallville) is negotiating to play Badgley’s girlfriend.
O’Quinn reprised the role in the '89 sequel (without the hairpiece), but skipped Number Three, necessitating the scripting of plastic surgery for the serial killer. If Walsh makes this one into a trilogy, perhaps he can get TV co-star Julian McMahon to put him under the knife.
Production is aiming for a March or April start.
[Thanks to JARROD SARAFIN at Mania for the link.]