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A Princess Bride remake is inconceivable, Westley says

You want to remake this movie? Prepare to die.

Headshot of Gael Cooper
Headshot of Gael Cooper
Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read

Some movies don't need remakes. When word spread Tuesday that unnamed filmmakers want to remake the 1987 fantasy adventure film The Princess Bride, many fans borrowed a famed line from the movie and declared the idea inconceivable.

The uproar began when Variety published an interview with Norman Lear, who produced the original film. In the article, Sony Pictures Entertainment chief executive Tony Vinciquerra mentions that there's always plenty of buzz about remaking shows or films Lear worked on.

"Very famous people whose names I won't use, but they want to redo The Princess Bride," Vinciquerra said.

Well, like Inigo Montoya, fans drew their metaphorical swords and told those would-be remakers to prepare to die.

Star Cary Elwes, who played Westley and recently appeared in Stranger Things, weighed in by tweaking a quote from the film. "There's a shortage of perfect movies in this world," he wrote in a tweet. "It would be a pity to damage this one." (The original quote refers to Princess Buttercup's breasts, because of course it did.)

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, whose husband, Christopher Guest, played the evil Count Rugen, also weighed in. "Well, I married the six-fingered man," she wrote in a tweet. "And there is only ONE The Princess Bride and it's (author) William Goldman and (director) Rob Reiner's."

Other fans weighed in, too. "If they remake The Princess Bride, I will start a revolution," warned one.

Calm down, all you Buttercups and Westleys out there. USA Today managed to grab a quote from "a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly" who reassured the newspaper there are no real plans for a Princess Bride remake. Too bad, really. Fans might've had fun storming the castle.