UPDATE: Screen Daily has talked to Von Trier's business partner, and alas, the rumors are untrue. Scorsese and Von Trier did in fact meet-- oh to have been a fly on that wall-- but there is no Taxi Driver remake planned. The world has missed an opportunity to get a little odder.
So we're all firmly against reboots, right? Bastardizing well-loved material to make a quick buck, allowing upstart new directors to destroy something precious, all that nonsense. But what about an arty reboot? That's possibly the best way to describe a potential new Lars von Trier project, in which he would, no joke, attempt to remake Taxi Driver five times, with a few extra rules to make things really challenging.
The news comes out of the Berlin Film Festival and a report from a Danish newspaper that says Scorsese has agreed to cooperate with von Trier on a follow-up to the film. Based on the sleuthing and Google translating that JoBlo.com was able to do, Von Trier would make the film according to the rules laid out in the 2003 documentary The Five Obstructions, in which Von Trier challenged his friend to remake his favorite film five times. Presumably this time the friend, Jorgen Leth, would get to lay down his own rules for Von Trier-- last time the challenges included setting the new film in Cuba, or making it entirely animated.
There's no telling what's going on with this story in actuality, whether it's a rumor cooked up in the insanity of a film festival or if Scorsese really has just slipped a gear and agreed to something so nuts. Given that the last big news story about Von Trier was the ultimately false one about him working with Penelope Cruz, I'm not getting my hopes up too high.
