The 1953 masterpiece Jon Bernthal would remake on one condition: “As solid as they get”
From cucking Rick Grimes in the middle of the apocalypse to blasting through bad guys as The Punisher, Jon Bernthal has been on one hell of a journey over the past decade or so.
Since his initial rise to fame in The Walking Dead, he’s worked with just about every famous actor and director on the planet, from Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese in The Wolf of Wall Street to a whole host of stars on Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Bernthal has formed a strong working relationship with Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan. The actor had a brief role in Sheridan’s 2017 film Wind River, playing a man who dies early in the story and kicks the plot into action. Four years later, he got a significant upgrade, being cast as a sheriff whose brother-in-law is on the run in the action thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had a role in Sheridan’s upcoming Call of Duty movie.
Speaking to Boss Hunting ahead of that latter film’s release, Bernthal was quick to heap praise on the up-and-coming auteur. “I’ll do anything with Taylor,” he said, “I love Taylor. As a filmmaker, as a human being, as an artist, he’s as solid as they get. I love the guy”.
Sheridan is known for breathing new life into the western genre, so when asked by the interviewer which classic western he would like to remake alongside the director, Bernthal namedropped the 1953 film Shane. Originally directed by the great George Stevens, the film stars Alan Ladd as the eponymous gunfighter, who blows into a small town in Wyoming in 1889, and then joins a group of homesteaders in their fight against a group of rich landowners.
The film is nothing short of a classic and has been rightfully recognised. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including ‘Best Picture’, and in 1993, was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The title character has been heralded as one of the greatest heroes in cinematic history, and the famous scene in which a young child yells, “Shane! Shane! Come back!” has entered the cinematic lexicon.
The most recent attempt to update Shane was a 1966 TV show starring David Carradine. Since then, while there have been no more remakes, the film has impacted a number of other pieces of media. Kim Wilde released a B-side called ‘Shane’ in 1981, which directly references the film, while Roger Waters alludes to the story in his solo track ‘The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking’.
Superhero fans might recognise the movie from its appearance in Logan, James Mangold’s R-rated love letter to Wolverine. The film is clearly a big inspiration for Logan, which frames the X-Man as a washed-up drifter.
If Bernthal and Sheridan ever did want to remake Shane, they’d have no shortage of support. Emily Blunt is a big fan, while Richard Gere once claimed his performance in Brooklyn’s Finest was based on Alan Ladd’s. Morgan Freeman has spoken publicly about also wanting to remake the film, so maybe they could squeeze him in there too.
