Sony Is Thinking Of Remaking Labyrinth

A lot of people regard Jim Henson’s Labyrinth as an untouchable 80s classic and feel it could never be made today. I guess Sony is going to try.

According to some outside reports, Sony has hired Robert Eggers, the man behind the recent Nosferatu movie, to look into developing a Labyrinth remake. Since this guy’s bread and butter is the grungy horror genre (he also made The Witch and The Northman), there’s reason to hope he won’t sand the edges down, however, remakes rarely turn out as good as the originals.

The original Labyrinth is about Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), who has a new baby brother she hates. She’s been saddled with babysitting him and she hates that too! She despises him so much she wishes the goblins would take him away. Upon saying those words, Jareth The Goblin King whooshes through her window to do just that. Uh, she didn’t mean it?

Too late….well, almost too late. To undo her wish, Sarah must find her brother and take him back by entering the world of the goblins and navigating the dangerous, pitfall-laden Labyrinth of the title. If she can’t do it in less than a day, her brother will be turned into a goblin and a permanent disciple of Jareth. It’s a good thing a lot of the monsters that hang around that maze turn out to be of the helpful variety.

I didn’t see Labyrinth as a kid. I didn’t even know it existed until I was in college. I didn’t actually watch the whole thing until I’d hit my thirties. My judgment: the Henson creatures are great, and so is Bowie, but the protagonist is kind of bland. I don’t know if a remake would improve that, but (looks in Kraven’s direction) Sony hasn’t proven to be competent lately with live-action. If this project can get out of the Hollywood maze, we’ll see what we get.