Casting Call: High Noon
In which we suggest who should star in the next big adaptation, remake, or historical film.
Released in 1952, the iconic western High Noon broke away from the genre’s cheesy, formulaic plotlines and achieved recognition as a sophisticated moral drama. Directed by Fred Zinneman, the film stars Gary Cooper as retiring sheriff Will Kane and Grace Kelly—a relative newcomer at the time—as his wife, a Quaker at odds with her husband’s dangerous profession. When a recently released convict vows to exact his revenge on Kane, Sheriff Kane must make a decision: fight or flee. While the film initially received mixed reviews for not delivering the action and thrill of a standard western, it has since been deemed as a classic for Cooper’s sobering performance and the film’s criticism of social injustice.
Recently, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Relativity Studios has acquired the rights to remake High Noon. It’s a high-stakes project for the studio—its first since exiting out of bankruptcy protection in April. The remake is set to give the original a contemporary makeover, moving the action from New Mexico to the U.S.-Mexico border and reframing it as a conflict between law enforcement and drug cartels. It will be interesting to see how the remake handles this very real conflict while respecting the original’s impressive legacy. Since no casting decisions have been announced yet, we’d like to offer some suggestions.
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