Back in 2019, it was first reported by Deadline that director David Ayer would be taking a shot at remaking the classic WWII action film “The Dirty Dozen.” A seemingly solid pairing given that the filmmaker had recently worked with Brad Pitt on the WWII thriller “Fury,” which focuses on a group of tank operators. While promoting his new Jason Statham-led actioner, “The Beekeeper,” Ayer gave Variety a brief update on the status of the project during a recent interview. Stating that the remake is still in active development but is having some trouble finding a good angle for it.

“They’ve been on the page a minute. I’m just trying to figure out where I’m going right now. ‘Dozen’ has been in development for a bit, and it’s just trying to find the right angle for that one.”

“It’s nerve-wracking, to be honest. I have so much respect for cinematic history, and these are all projects that I grew up loving before being a filmmaker. I think that’s always the challenge of these things: How do you modernize something and build it out for a modern audience, while at the same time keeping that DNA? You see how different filmmakers deal with the same problems in different ways.“

If you’re not familiar with the 1967 movie it focuses on a “suicide squad” if you will that sees Lee Marvin‘s character Major John Reisman recruit twelve condemned U.S. military prisoners during the Second World War and the group is offered the chance to avoid being hanged in jail for their crimes if they agree to volunteer for a deadly mission behind enemy lines to take out a key Nazi position and officers by any means necessary before the landing on D-Day. Marvin led the ensemble that featured Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, John Cassavetes, Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown, George Kennedy, and a baby-faced Donald Sutherland.

The original directed by Robert Aldrich would go on to spawn three sequels with “The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission,” “The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission,” and “The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission.” Of course, it was the direct inspiration for things like the DC Comics team, “The Suicide Squad,” which has had two feature film installments with Ayer directing the first one and James Gunn handling the follow-up.

At one time, producer Joel Silver and director Guy Ritchie had been putting together their version of “The Dirty Dozen” at Warner Bros. (As well as a “Sgt. Rock” movie based on the DC hero) around the time of their success with “Sherlock Holmes.” However, once Quentin Tarantino announced he was moving forward with his big commando movie “Inglourious Basterds” (Another project highly influenced by “Dozen”) that would star Pitt the studio pumped the breaks and it never fully recovered as both exited the remake. Ritchie has pivoted back to the idea of making a WWII commando film as “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” stars Henry Cavill and “Reacher” breakout Alan Ritchson in key roles.

“The Beekeeper” is now playing in theaters.

SOURCE: VARIETY