Sergio Leone & Clint Eastwood's ‘A Fistful Of Dollars’ Getting Remake

You don’t mess with greatness. You just don’t. Gus Van Sant learned that the hard way with his 1998 shot-by-shot remake of Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” However, studios clearly haven’t gotten the memo.

Over the past year (or two), Hollywood has greenlit remakes of “Vertigo,” “High & Low,” “The Conversation,” “Night of the Hunter,” “Possession,” “Wages of Fear,” “Wizard of Oz,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Naked Gun” and “Body Heat.” It’s only a matter of time before “Citizen Kane” is announced as their next victim.

Sequels, reboots, and remakes — that’s the only thing Hollywood knows how to do. There’s isn’t a cell of originality left in their brains.

Here’s another example. It’s been revealed that Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood’s “A Fistful Of Dollars| is set to be remade via Euro Gang Entertainment, the company founded by Hollywood vet Gianni Nunnari (300) and Simon Horsman (Magazine Dreams), alongside Italian production FPC, and Rome-based Jolly Film, which produced the original film. 

‘Fistful’ is the film that broke out the “spaghetti western” genre, and Eastwood’s career. The story of a lonesome gunfighter with no name who tricks two rival families against each other in a town torn apart by greed, pride, and revenge.

‘Fistful’ spawned an iconic trilogy which included “For a Few Dollars More” and, most iconic of all, “The Good the Bad and the Ugly,” all starring Eastwood. Two years later, Leone would go on to direct his “spaghetti western” masterpiece, “Once Upon A Time in the West,” sans Eastwood.

Yes, the original ‘Fistful’ was an unofficial remake of Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo,” I get that, but Eastwood was the face of Leone’s franchise, its heart and soul. You just can’t get an actor to replicate the aura that Eastwood brought to these films.