Since it premiered the army of The Princess Bride has only grown stronger. The 1987 fantasy classic from director Rob Reiner, writer William Goldman, and stars Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, and Robin Wright, debuted to critical acclaim and has only cemented its place in American popular culture since. To many, it’s a perfect movie, which is why when the prospect of remaking it pops up there’s always a very vocal response. Speaking with ComicBook.com in an interview for his new movie Sweetwater, we asked Elwes how he responds to people even thinking about remaking The Princess Bride. He previously perfected his response when the notion came up in 2019, and he hasn’t changed his tune.
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“Well, I already respond to that. There was a, uh, I don’t know, a CEO or president of some studio at some point was trying to create some kind of, uh, publicity around the fact that he was gonna remake the film. And he posted that on Twitter, and I responded that there’s a shortage of perfect movies in the world, be a pity to damage this one. And, and that seemed to get the response that I, that I wanted….Yeah, that got over 100,000 likes that one.”
For those that don’t recall, talk of a remake came back in 2019 from Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra who said that “very famous people whose names I won’t use” were eager to remake The Princess Bride. As of this writing Elwes’ tweet has almost half a million likes.
Based on Goldman’s novel of the same name, The Princess Bride was added to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress in 2016. Other than Elwes, the movie also starred Peter Falk, Fred Savage, Betsy Brantley, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Andrew the Giant, Billy Crystal, and Carol Kane amongst others.
“For the studios, the cost of promotion and advertising has become so prohibitive now that they want to cut down on that,” Elwes previously told The Hollywood Reporter about a potential Princess Bride remake. “Their feeling is that when they do a reboot or remake, they have a target audience, so they don’t have to spend as much on marketing. So I understand the motivation. But my theory is, look, if the movie is popular and it’s done well, and people love it, I think it’s pretty much best left alone. If a film has landed in the hearts of the public, then, to me, it’s not a good idea to try and revisit it.”
Sweetwater is now playing in theaters. The sports-drama is described as follows: Hall of Famer Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton makes history as the first African American to sign an NBA contract, forever changing how the game of basketball is played.
