Few stories are as classic as those of forbidden love. Make your star-crossed lovers a pair of stubborn teens, and you've got a drama that can appeal to hopeless romantics of all ages. Surely this is the hope for Endless Love, a story about the connections formed between two young lovers who won't give each other up, come hell, high water, or parental scorn. Get a taste of this steamy teen romance in its first trailer, courtesy of MTV.
Gabriella Wilde and Alex Pettyfer front the film as Jade Butterfield and David Axelrod. She's a brainy bookworm, who has been too busy studying to notice boys. Yet, she can't help but notice the strapping Axelrod, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks who has a criminal past and casually steals cars for joyrides. Despite their different backgrounds, the two can't fight their shared attraction. Jade's parents won't stand for their perfect little girl getting caught up with some hooligan, but will their disapproval be enough to pull Jade away from the dreamy David?
The cast also boasts Dayo Okeniyi of The Hunger Games and The Spectacular Now as David's best friend Mace, as well as Bruce Greenwood and Robert Patrick as Jade and David's respective fathers. Shana Feste, writer-director of the music-driven Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle Country Strong, helms Endless Love from a screenplay she co-wrote with Gossip Girl scribe Joshua Safran.
Though inspired by the 1979 Scott Spencer novel of the same name, this new film is essentially a remake of Franco Zeffirelli's 1981 adaptation, which cemented Brooke Shields status as one of Hollywood's hottest ingénues. By contrast, Shield's co-star Martin Hewitt never reached the level of fame she did, though he continued to pop up in television and film until 2003. Only time will tell if the top liners of this Endless Love will follow in the footsteps of Shields or Hewitt. To get a sense of the different approaches Feste and Zeffirelli had in creating this romantic drama, compare the trailer up top to the one below for the 1981 original.
Endless Love will open in theaters on Valentine's Day 2014. In the meantime, you can see Wilde in another remake opening tomorrow, Kimberly Peirce's Carrie, a re-imagination of the Stephen King novel first adapted in 1976 by Brian De Palma. Pettyfer can currently be seen in Lee Daniels' The Butler.
