The Movie Flightplan: No acknowledgment of the The Lady Vanishes whatsoever.

The BBQ Pit
1

Saw the trailer for the new Jodie Foster movie Flightplan. I recognized it immediately as the remake of Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, seeing as how they included the famous window drawing and some identical dialogue in the trailer.

Being the curious sort, I went online to see how they went about renaming it, moving the setting to a plane, whatever.

What do I find? Not one single acknowledgment that this was a Hitchcock film in the main details on IMDb. Nothing in the “plot summary” either.

Incredulous, I went directly to the official website (Linked above). From the “About the film” section:

“Academy award-winning producer Brian Grazer (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13) teams up two-time Academy award-winning actress Jodie Foster (Silence of the Lambs, The Accused) in the taut psychological thriller, FLIGHTPLAN, directed by Robert Schwentke and written by Peter A. Dowling and Billy Ray.”

Say WHAT?? Not one reference to the older film, not one reference to Hitchcock. Nowhere on the official site did they refer to The Lady Vanishes at all. No nod to the original writer of the novel, or that the screenplay was even adapted from the original source. Nope, they’re passing it off as an original movie. Can they even do that? Can two Hollywood screenwriters change just enough from an original classic (“Let’s make it her daughter! Let’s make it on an airplane!”) and pass it off as their own?

And even if they could, why would they? Wouldn’t the fact that they’re remaking a classic Hitchcock movie actually add support to the film?
What’s next: “From producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay… Ben Affleck IS … Afraid of Heights!!!”

:mad:
Oh, and was it too much to ask that they name the daughter “Froy”? Yep.

2

It’s always too much to ask a little girl to be named “Froy.” It sounds like a sailing term. “Jib the boom up and froy the mainmast! Arrrrr!”

3

I think you can submit information to IMDb, at least. I don’t know if they’ll ever accept it into the page.

The ‘Movie Connections’ page for Flightplan:


References
    [The Lady Vanishes](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030341/) (1938)
    [Bunny Lake Is Missing](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058997/) (1965)

This is a long way from vindication, but at least it’s a mention.

4

Well, to be fair, maybe you should see the movie before labeling it as a remake of anything. Those details you mention (the window drawing) could simply be homages to Hitchcock’s film…that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a remake, per se.

5

There’s also several rather critical story differences, to be honest. It’s too far from “The Lady Vanishes” to be a remake, IMHO.

6

Plus, since the basic story itself seems to date back at least to the 1930’s, one could argue that Flightplan doesn’t owe any previous movie any acknolwedgement.

7

And somehow I doubt that the daughter is actually a spy with a secret code and I don’t think it will rally England into putting aside their petty differences and join WWII.

8

Indee, sharing a much-used premise does not a remake make.

9

Since The Lady Vanishes is still under copyright, wouldn’t they have had to get permission to make references to that in the advertising for their movie?

And possibly the copyright owners didn’t want that done, and refused permission? Or wanted to be paid a large amount for that permission?

Those seem quite likely explanations to me.

10

I agree. I really don’t see this as a remake of The Lady Vanishes at all.

But on another note - we’re only like 10 days away til this opens - I’m looking forward to it.

Has anyone seen the little tour of the plane thing? The virtual tour?