Remake of Christopher Nolan’s ‘Memento’ in Development
Less than 15 years after its U.S. theatrical release, Christopher Nolan‘s Memento is already being eyed for a remake. The film’s remake rights were acquired when Exclusive Media Group’s extensive film library was sold to AMBI Pictures in September, and among AMBI’s first orders of business is to remake Nolan’s Oscar-nominated, mind-bending thriller, Variety reports.
“Memento has been consistently ranked as one of the best films of its decade,” AMBI chief investor Andrea Iervolino said in a statement. “People who’ve seen Memento 10 times still feel they need to see it one more time. This is a quality that we feel really supports and justifies a remake. The bar is set high thanks to the brilliance or Christopher Nolan, but we wouldn’t want it any other way.” It’s unclear whether Nolan will have any role in the remake.
Memento is most known for its innovative use of non-linear timelines, as a tattooed amnesiac’s story is told both sequentially (in black-and-white footage) and in reverse (in color). The film, based on brother Jonathan Nolan’s short story “Memento Mori,” was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing, and was a springboard for Nolan on his way to becoming one of Hollywood’s most revered filmmakers.
While it’s not uncommon for foreign films to be remade for American audiences within a decade of the original – The Vanishing, Point of No Return, The Departed and Nolan’s own Insomnia remake are all cases of that occurring – it’s extremely rare for an American film to be remade for an American audience so soon after its initial release.
Memento isn’t the only cult favorite currently sitting in Exclusive Media Group’s library: Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, I Heart Huckabees, Sliding Doors and Ralph Bakshi’s Fire and Ice are also now property of AMBI. The library also includes music documentaries like Kurt Cobain: About a Son, Scorsese’s George Harrison: Living in a Material World and Bob Dylan: No Direction Home and Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who, plus the Dylan vehicle Masked and Anonymous and the David Bowie-inspired Velvet Goldmine.