There have only been two movies that I’ve ever made money off of — The Departed, on which I served as a lowly production assistant for a single day, and the racy 1996 thriller Fear, which my mother paid me $20 to not see as a 12-year-old boy with raging hormones. Eventually, of course, I did watch Fear, which immediately became one of my favorite thrillers — no joke.
Universal has been mulling over a Fear remake the past few years (with Amandla Stenberg attached to star), but this week the studio decided to take a new, um, path, as The Path creator Jessica Goldberg is going to turn the Mark Wahlberg–Reese Witherspoon movie into a series for Peacock, Imagine Television, and Universal TV.
Goldberg wrote the script, which serves as a modern reinvention of the original story. The Seattle-set series will pit two young lover, David and Nicole, in a psychological game of cat and mouse — only this time, it’s unclear who’s the cat, and who’s the mouse.
Told from conflicting points of view, the series wrestles with personal demons, hidden agendas and reframes the “he said-she said” convention into a twist-filled suspense story about toxic relationships.
Goldberg will executive produce alongside Imagine Television’s Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Lilly Burns and Kristen Zolner. She previously created the Aaron Paul-led Hulu series The Path, on which she also serves as executive producer and showrunner. More recently, she served as EP/showrunner on the Netflix series Away starring Hilary Swank. Goldberg is represented by UTA.
Variety broke the news of the Fear reboot, which strikes me as a great pickup for Peacock, provided the streamer can find two up-and-coming young leads with real chemistry. Wahlberg and Witherspoon had it, and they both went on to become A-list movie stars. Let’s just hope whoever Peacock casts has better chemistry than Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson did in the streamer’s recent laugh-free rom-com Meet Cute.
The original Fear grossed $20 million at the box office — but it would’ve made $20 dollars more if I didn’t have an overprotective Jewish mother. Stay tuned for casting news regarding the series, which should be a must-see whenever it debuts, if only for its erotic rollercoaster scene.
And for the record, I’m totally open to bringing back William Petersen in any capacity. That guy rules.