Bring Me the Rakes

Contunuing the sometimes-successful trend of late of movies made from books getting now stretched out to multi-episode prestige miniseries' length -- think Dead Ringers, Presumed Innocent, Ripley et cetera -- we now have a third filmed version of John D. MacDonald's 1957 novel The Executioners coming our way... which we all know better by its adapted title of Cape Fear. Previously there's been the 1962 movie with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, and then of course there is Martin Scorsese's 1992 remake with Nick Nolte and Robert De Niro -- and now, landing on June 5th, we have Patrick Wilson and Javier Bardem tackling the roles of the good family man lawyer and the evil criminal who comes back to torment him. Plot twist, though -- in 2026 it's not just one but two prosecutors in the family, and so the wife character (previously played by Polly Bergen and Jessica Lange) is now co-responsible for the bad dude's imprisonment. All the better to give Amy Adams something to do in the role. Here, just watch the trailer:

The excellent news about this series is it's coming to us -- well yes it was executive produced by both Scorsese and one Steven Spielberg. That's sort of a big deal. But the actual person running this show is Nick Antosca, and we LOVE Nick Antosca thanks to a couple of series he ran several years back -- specifically the horror anthology Channel Zero as well as the too-too-short-lived series Brand New Cherry Flavor on Netflix. Channel Zero in particular is my beloved, and cemented Antosca as a person I will follow forever. That said -- hypocrisy alert -- I still haven't gotten around to watching his last project A Friend of the Family starring Jake Lacy. I kept forgetting it existed -- repeat with me my favorite refrain, "There are too many damn shows." 

Anyway. I'm a really over-the-top fan of Scorsese's film Cape Fear -- it's for real a Top 5 Scorsese movie for me, even while he himself isn't really a fan of it. It barely figured into his recent career-retrospective documentary, which irritated me. I adore how operatic and purple it goes -- I find it riveting, with Lange fluttering her hands in every direction madly and De Niro literally chomping chunks out of the scenery. This 2026 version seems to be aping a lot of that film visually -- there are shots taken straight from it in this trailer. I guess we'll see. I know I'll be watching. And I have to say I wouldn't be angry if Bardem's terrifying flirtations landed on Patrick Wilson this time. Just a thought!