Poorly Received Bruce Willis Movie Getting TV Remake With MCU & Fantastic Beasts Stars

Jul 11, 2023

Day Of The Jackal, the inspiration for Bruce Willis' poorly received movie The Jackal, gets a TV remake with Lashana Lynch and Eddie Redmayne.

Day of The Jackal, the best-selling 1971 novel which inspired Bruce Willis’ 1997 action-thriller The Jackal, is getting a fresh TV series remake with Lashana Lynch and Eddie Redmayne. Previously inspiring a 1973 film adaptation, the property was later reworked in the late ‘90s with Willis playing the titular hitman known as the Jackal and Richard Gere assuming the role of a former IRA sniper tasked with aiding in his capture. Despite performing well at the box office, The Jackal was lambasted by critics and earned Gere a nomination for Worst Fake Accent in the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards.

Variety reports that Marvel and No Time To Die star Lynch is set to assume a leading role in a new TV remake opposite Redmayne, who will also executive produce the series. According to this latest report, Lynch will play Bianca, a "tenacious law enforcement agent determined to catch The Jackal." Meanwhile, Fantastic Beasts star Redmayne will assume Willis’ role as the infamous assassin. Production is set to begin later in 2023, with the finished series expected to release on Peacock.

Fresh off the success of his critically acclaimed roles in films like Pulp Fiction, Die Hard With A Vengeance, and 12 Monkeys, Willis was at the height of his career when his collaborative film with fellow box-office draw card Gere was released. Pulling in $159 million against a budget of $60 million which made it a commercial success, it was almost universally panned by critics and accused of being a lackluster attempt at adapting the original novel that took far too many liberties with the source material.

Shifting the original concept of an assassination plot to kill the French president orchestrated by a militant far-right organization, Willis’ film instead made the First Lady of the United States the target of an attack planned by the Russian mafia. Meanwhile, Gere's character was an original creation with no direct parallels to the original book or 1973 film. The changes were prolific that during production, the book's original author, Frederick Forsyth, along with the 1973 film's director and producer, had threatened an injunction against Universal Studios. As a result, the film was officially retitled as The Jackal.

If Redmayne and Lynch's latest attempt to bring the story back to screens is to succeed, it will do well to pay much closer attention to the details featured in the original book. While some things will undoubtedly need to change to bring the material into the 21st century, returning the series to its original European setting would be a big step in the right direction. Only time will tell if Redmayne and Lynch's Day of the Jackal adaptation will fare better with critics than Willis’ and Geere's disappointed version.

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Source: Variety