Mike De Luca to Remake Angel Heart

With Mickey Rourke driving for an Oscar with The Wrestler, his titillating ’80s filmography is now on the remake menu. Unlike The Pope of Greenwich Village and 9 1/2 Weeks, 1987’s Angel Heart was a middling effort best known for giving Bill Cosby a heart murmur. Producer Mike De Luca (Ghost Rider, Blade II) and co. have picked up the remake rights, along with the rights to Falling Angel, the NYC-set novel from which the original film was adapted.

An ambitious mix of noir, voodoo horror and taboo Lisa Bonet sex scenes, Alan Parker’s film starred Rourke as a P.I. unknowingly hired by Lucifer (Robert De Niro) to locate a man in New Orleans. The plot is weighed down by a slapdash Fight Club-like twist ending, but the film is so well shot and stylized, it’s almost worth a view and has its fans. There’s room for improvement here, and De Luca says he’s a fan of the source material, so remake exhaustion and disenchantment aside, it will come down to the director and talent involved (enlightening, I know).