Johnny Depp's 'Thin Man' Remake Gains Some Traction

When it was first "announced" that Johnny Depp was keen on doing a remake of "The Thin Man" with director Rob Marshall, I chalked it up to little more than a whim that would pass as soon as the latest Tim Burton project fell on his desk.

But if there's one person in Hollywood whose whims you chase, it's Johnny Depp's, so Warner Brothers is hard at work developing it. The Hollywood Reporter now says they've brought in Jerry Stahl to write it.

"The Thin Man" was based on a Dashiel Hammet novel of the same name and spawned no less than five sequels (proving that the current trend of branding is nothing new, just newly proliferated), all of them starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, married detectives.

Well, technically, only Nick was a detective, and in the first film had been taking it easy after marrying Nora, whose familial wealth made it easy for him to never work again. But Nora loves the idea that her husband was once a hard-boiled detective, and jumps at the chance to join him when he's pulled out of retirement.

"The Thin Man," and particularly its much better sequel, "After the Thin Man," are a blast to watch. They have wonderful dialogue, intriguing mysteries, and by far cinema's most interesting married couple. Nick and Nora make fun of each other relentlessly, but Powell and Loy are so charming in their manner that you know it comes from a loving place.

This dynamic in particular is what worries me most about a potential remake, in an era when playful banter has been replaced with outright cruelty in the romantic comedy.

There's also the matter of the alcohol.

Nick in particular is the very definition of a functioning alcoholic, something the movies dealt with very easily in the 1930s and 40s, but in recent years has taken a bit of a turn. With alcoholism now a serious, medical issue, and the writer of "Permanent Midnight" guiding the story, AND Warner Brothers promising a "contemporary attitude," is there any leverage left for the charming drunk in cinema?

We shall see. Everyone's in the Johnny Depp game these days, so Warner Brothers will be chasing this with everything they've got, and Depp seems keen to do it. There is also the matter of whether or not Rob Marshall is any good for this material - the 30s setting will never look more artificial, that's for sure - but who knows if he'll even see this all the way through. And who could possibly play alongside Depp as Nora? So many questions.