Doug Liman May Direct Coen Bros-Scripted Film 'Gambit'

As remakes go, we could do a lot worse than a new take on a mid-'60s heist picture that originally starred Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine. Especially when the script is by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Back in January word came out that producer Mike Lobell was still trying to mount a film based on the Coen Brothers rewrite of Gambit, which cast Caine as a cat burglar who gets romantically involved with his recruited accomplice, played by MacLaine. At the time there was no director attached, but now Doug Liman is moving towards the director's chair.Deadline reports that as Liman approaches Cannes with Fair Game, his movie that casts Naomi Watts as outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, the director is looking at a couple of movies. One is Gambit; another is one of the Three Musketeers revamps; a third is "an untitled moon mission project at Paramount with Jake Gyllenhaal." That last one sounds interesting, but I'd quite like to see a Coen-scripted heist movie get made, so I'm kinda rooting for Gambit.

Here's a rundown of the original film:

Ideal and reality clash in this humorous tale of the heist that could have been. As scheming career cat burglar Harry Dean (Michael Cane) prepares to steal a priceless statue from the world's richest man, he seeks out the assistance of Eurasian showgirl Suzy Chang (Shirley MacLaine). Though the likable rogue's plan seems foolproof as he conveys the details to his partner Ram (Robert C. Carmel), the execution proves a detailed study in Murphy's Law. Constantly reinventing the plan as his originally ideal spirals ever more out of control, it seems as if Harry's heist is destined to fail.

And here is a rather terrible trailer for the original. If the embed doesn't work, try the original link. Apologies for the awful ad that might precede it.