If you’ve already checked out our list of directors who made great remakes of their own films, you won’t think it that strange that David Cronenberg is reportedly involved in a remake of his version of The Fly, itself an update of Kurt Nuemann’s 1958 classic of the same name. And few movie bloggers could argue that it’s a bad idea given Cronenberg’s talent as a filmmaker.

Still, nobody can figure out any kind of logical motivation behind the change of heart, given that Cronenberg has always been against the idea of a remake (despite the fact that he was okay with remakes enough to do one himself). And most of us would really, really, really like to see the Goldblum brought back for the lead, as redundant as that may seem.

Check out what the film blogs are saying about this reboot idea after the jump:

• Adam Rosenberg at MTV Movies Blog quotes Cronenberg’s anti-remake stance of a few years back:
  

  This is a surprising turn, considering that the filmmaker told MTV a couple of years ago that that he’s wary of remakes. “I’ve heard of remakes of everything from ‘The Brood,’ to ‘The Fly,’ to you name it. There’s such a desire to have some kind of comfort level amongst producers, and if it’s a known property [that helps]. That’s one of the reasons, for example, that graphic novels are getting made into movies: They can see it. It’s there. They can hold it in their hands. It maybe has a pre-sold audience, up to a certain point. So I guess it’s inevitable that they’d be trolling for remakes.”

• Quint at Ain’t It Cool News is annoyed Cronenberg ruined his saved-up headline joke:
  

  A dark, twisted, cynical side of me was waiting for this news of a remake of David Cronenberg’s remake of THE FLY because I could then pull out “Be afraid. Be VERY afraid” for the headline. But then David Cronenberg went and fucked that up for me. Thanks, Dave.

• Dustin Rowles at Pajiba complains that the remake will lack one of the best ingredients of the original remake:
  

  Huh. That just doesn’t make any sense. Did da Vinci go back and repaint the Mona Lisa after he found a better paintbrush? No. Did Dylan and The Band go back and re-record The Basement Tapes in an actual studio? No. Did Sam Raimi remake Evil Dead when he got a bigger budget?

  OK. That was a bad example.

  The point I’m getting at is this: It’s not a very good idea. Even with the same director, a bigger budget, and better special effects, there’s one thing that David Cronenberg probably won’t have: Jeff Goldblum. He was fully half of the reason for that film’s success, and nobody today can pull off that role as effectively as Goldblum. CGI or no CGI.

• Monika Bartyzel at Cinematical offers ways to make this so Goldblum fans won’t complain:
  

  But how should it play out? I would hope that the reboot would be an entirely new and different story, otherwise I’ll spend a few hours wishing for more Goldblum. But what if he and Geena Davis came back? This isn’t a sports legend or teen story — a scientist can be a little older.

• Amos Barshad at Vulture jokes about how this version can incorporate new cinema technology:
  

  Hollywood Reporter notes that this would give him a chance to improve on his first Fly’s special effects, plus we’ve always totally wanted to see the vomiting parts in 3-D.

• Tony Lang at JoBlo.com isn’t joking; he thinks it likely. And he’s got a casting idea:
  

  A remake to Cronenberg’s THE FLY is pretty much inevitable folks, and I’ll go one step further in predicting it’ll be in 3D. [...] Who’d be good to replace Goldblum? I say Zachary Quinto. Heores probably won’t be getting a 5th season anyway…

• Paul Young at ScreenRant offers another casting suggestion:
  

  Cronenberg has had some recent successes directing Eastern Promises and A History of Violence, both starring Viggo Mortensen. Which makes me wonder if Viggo could be the next BrundleFly? That is of course if Viggo is still making films. Last we heard he was, but we have no way of truly knowing until he signs on to another project. Actually, I think Viggo would be a good match to play the scientist doomed to hover around garbage.

• Peter Hall at Horror Squad really loves him some Cronenberg, but he’s got reason to worry:
  

  Now the bad news is that David Cronenberg will be working with 20th Century Fox on the picture. Things have changed just a tad in the 23 years since Cronenberg first brought The Fly to the studio. Fox has garnered a reputation in the last few years of being particularly restrictive of directorial vision (both Matthew Vaughn walking off of X-Men 3 and all of the overrides Alex Proyas received during the production of I, Robot comes to mind), so the only thing that could possibly make me lose interest in the project would be if Cronenberg gets shoved aside in order to serve some higher studio agenda.

• Craig Kennedy at Living in Cinema is another big fan, but he’s baffled:
  

  It’s not a horrible idea per se, but is Cronenberg only interested in the quick cash or does he genuinely have a few interesting ideas that would justify a new incarnation [...] Cronenberg is an LiC favorite and we’re inclined to give him the benefit of a doubt, but this one leaves us scratching our collective heads.

• Meredith Woerner at io9 believes Hollywood is on the right track here:
  

  Is Hollywood finally figuring it out? First Ridley Scott gets behind the Alien prequel and now David Cronenberg himself is remaking his own film, The Fly. While we wish it was something original, you can never have enough Cronenberg.

• S.T. VanAirsdale at Movieline can’t see the reasoning behind Cronenberg’s decision but thinks its as good an idea as any in today’s Hollywood:
  

  The filmmaker’s timetable is as uncertain as his reasoning; he has both The Matarese Circle and Cosmopolis currently in development, and he has stated previously that he had no interest in returning to the man-insect horror tale. On the other hand, Cronenberg did produce the film’s opera adaptation last year, the screen adaptation of which deserves as much of a shot as Barbie, He-Man or any other retreads on the assembly line.

• Ramses Flores at Collider wonders if maybe it’s just a cash grab:
  

  I don’t really have a theory or an explanation for this one and that is why I’m interested in seeing where it goes.  The only theory that I can come up with is that maybe Cronenberg is doing this one for the money so that he can finance a personal project, but the director’s transition to more “mainstream affair” with his past two films (”A History of Violence”, “Eastern Promises”) makes me believe that we are not going to see another “Videodrome” or “Naked Lunch” anytime soon.

• Owen Williams at Empire sees a more logical reason for Cronenberg to agree to this:
  

  Rob Zombie said that he only agreed to remake Halloween because he couldn’t bear to think of it being done by anyone else. That’s the only possible reason we can think of to explain the news from The Hollywood Reporter that David Cronenberg is set to direct and probably write a new version of The Fly.

• Sean at FilmJunk points out the difference between this and other films remade by the same director who made the originals, and he thinks this contrast makes this a bad idea:
  

  A lot of people are grouping this in as part of a new trend where directors have been remaking their own work; for example, Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, and Takashi Shimizu’s The Grudge. However, the difference is that in those cases, the movie was being adapted into a different language. To me, this seems a little bit redundant, unless Cronenberg for some reason isn’t happy with how the original turned out.

• Katey Rich at Cinema Blend also notes the difference between Cronenberg and other recycling filmmakers:
  

  Yeah, sure, Alfred Hitchcock remade The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Michael Haneke decided he needed to specifically punish Americans when he made an English-language version of Funny Games. But Cronenberg has always seemed like a filmmaker who moves forward, not the kind who revisits his own work. He should consider himself lucky he’s not out promoting any movies at the moment, because otherwise he’d be faced with a litany of geek questions that would never, ever end.

• Mark at I Watch Stuff hopes this makes way for another artist to remake his own work:
  

  I suppose this will do until I figure out how to get the remake I really want: The Metamorphosis, re-written by a reanimated Franz Kafka (updated with advanced modern punctuation). That would just be tops.

• Coincidentally, today Peter Hall at SciFi Squad has a list of top sci-fi horror movies, on which Cronenberg’s original remake places high
  

  3. The Fly
  Superbly modulated by David Cronenberg, his remake tackles teleportation with a fresh eye even as it covers a wide range of horror, from grossly disgusting to subtly disturbing. Jeff Goldblum makes for a convincingly brilliant, amusingly debonair scientist, which makes his slide into madness all the more poignant; Geena Davis makes something special out of her role as ‘the girlfriend.’

• Vince Mancini at FilmDrunk also praises Cronenberg’s original remake:
  

  My favorite part of the original was when Jeff Goldblum first starts turning into a fly, and they illustrate this by him going to a bar, breaking some dude’s arm in an arm wrestling match, and picking up a slut.  See, that’s why David Cronenberg is a visionary.  Most people would think, “Okay, he’s turning into a fly… so that means he starts growing wings, maybe he hangs around the garbage dump, suddenly he wants to smell everyone’s sh’t?”  Not Cronenberg.  Cronenberg said “Duh, he’s a fly.  Obviously he’s gonna get drunk and arm wrestle and pick up sluts.”