Miss Marple is Back! Sort of!

[Benjamin Sobieck]

Jennifer Garner will play Miss Marple in a re-imagining of Agatha Christie's sleuth. But don't think for a minute Garner will break out the age-enhancing cosmetics. This is to be a more youthful take on the franchise, with Miss Marple being in her 30s.

 

Doesn't this basically make her a Nancy Drew?

 

I remember watching Miss Marple TV shows as a kid. Part of the fun is that she wasn't a hip prototypical detective. This move seems like a serious mistake. It'd be like rebooting Murder, She Wrote with Britney Spears as the lead.

 

Here are the details: http://tinyurl.com/4ghjj4d

 

What do you think?

[I. J. Parker]

I'm very doubtful.  Miss Marple was never in her thirties.  Perhaps these are Marple-esque new stories?  One has big problems imagining a thirty-year-old female having nothing to do but to putter in the garden and attend vicarage teas.

It makes one think they might have a modern liberated woman in mind, but that I cannot at all plug into the existing plots.

 

Will we next get a youthful Poirot?  Actually easier to imagine.

[Benjamin Sobieck]

Justin Beiber as Poirot is coming down the pipe, I'm sure. He's Canadian, which is French enough for Hollywood (although Poirot was Belgian, I think).

[I. J. Parker]

LOL.  Well, it's all about the money.  And probably Christie books are in the public doomain, these days.

[John McFetridge]

Not public domain, the estate is saying the deal isn't closed:

 

http://www.deadline.com/2011/03/disney-deal-to-remake-miss-maple-ha...

 

[I. J. Parker]

Ah.  Well, it must be worth it.

[B.R.Stateham]

A bad idea all the way around.  Miss Marple has a certain image.  Anything under 60 just won't cut it.

[Sue Harding]

......er....wasn't the whole point of Miss Marple that no-one would believe such a genteel elderly lady would have such a rapier mind.......

 

I just don't see how some of the plots will translate to a younger character in a modern setting. Half their charm is the iconoclastic play between dastardly deed and quaint English lifestyle in sleepy little villages!

Don't mess with Agatha's creation - she ain't broke and she doesn't need fixing!

[Benjamin Sobieck]

Amen to that. These "reboots" Hollywood offers hurt more than help the legacy of these characters.

[EDWARD C MORGAN]

I couldn't agree more with the headline in your link.

[Benjamin Sobieck]

Good ol' AV Club usually says it like it is.

[Huw K. Dawson]

As a huge Christie fan, there is not enough of the letter "o" in the world to add on to the word "no" to describe this. What on earth would possess a Hollywood director to think this was a good idea? What the hell is the point of the Marple series if the main character is replaced?

 

 Why? Why? Why?

 

 I bet they'll even change the title too. "Ms Marple" is so much more fitting of a modern, young detective, after all. Plus let's not forget the Hollywood staples of Romantic Sub-Plot and Generic Sequence of Explosions. (Even British studios have fallen into that trap recently - Sherlock Holmes, anyone?)

 

 I'm seriously angry right now. This makes no sense, even down to the fundamental idea of a Marple feature-length movie. 2-hour BBC or ITV production, yes. Hollywood movie? Why?

 

 The final kick in the teeth is the lack of an English actress, although I know that's not the be-all and end-all of the matter.

 

 Ick. I'm going to go stab myself in the eye.

[Cyndi Martin]

Maybe if I don't think of her as Miss Marple but as a whole different thing I could stomach it but, no, that's not my idea of what she would've been like at that age.  I feel like they're giving Agatha Christie fans the finger.  They're sure not making this movie for us.