Eddie Redmayne Takes Over A Classic Bruce Willis Role In A TV Series Worth Your Time

It's a common lament that there aren't enough original movies anymore, and that every film not belonging to a franchise is born of a pre-existing intellectual property that's likely been mined before. How many trips are we going to take back to Middle-earth? Are we really doing Harry Potter again? And another "Wuthering Heights" with a white Heathcliffe (when he's written as Black in Emily Brontë's novel)?

Yet some yarns are more durable than others. There's always room for another "Hamlet," because part of the thrill is in watching great actors and directors tackle one of the greatest plays ever written — one that can be shifted from Denmark to locales like New York City, the Elsinore brewery, or Pride Rock. And no one's mad when one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries gets dusted off, even though we all know how the plot shakes out.

One piece of IP that's been revisited a surprising number of times is a very period-specific tale of a thwarted real-life assassination. The historical fiction was first published in 1971, then turned into a hit movie starring Edward Fox, Michael Lonsdale, and Derek Jacobi. There was a Malayalam adaptation in 1988 titled "August 1" featuring Indian cinema legends Mammootty, Captain Raju, and Sukumaran before Universal up and modernized the story in 1997 for a cat-and-mouse thriller starring Bruce Willis and Richard Gere.

The property is "The Day of the Jackal," and now it's back for another round as a miniseries with a decidedly British flavor.

Created by Ronan Bennett, a fine novelist in his own right and the screenwriter of Michael Mann's "Public Enemies," the newfangled "The Day of the Jackal" stars Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne as the title assassin hired, in this telling, to kill a billionaire tech mogul. If only Bennett had the gall of author Frederick Forsyth, who, in 1971, made the very real French president Charles de Gaulle the target of the Jackal.

This is the first major adaptation of Forsyth's novel since the Willis-Gere movie version called "The Jackal," which was a modest hit that grossed $159 million worldwide on a $60 million budget. That film fell flat with critics (it currently holds a 36 rating at Metacritic), but it's endured as a Dad Movie thanks to syndication and streaming (though it's not quite on the level of, say, "Backdraft," which is getting a remake of its own). Contrast this with "The Day of the Jackal" miniseries' 74 at Metacritic, and, if you've never seen the Willis-Gere joint, you're probably better off starting with the show (especially with the great Lashana Lynch co-starring as Redmayne's pursuer).

You can start this week on Peacock; the first five episodes of "The Day of the Jackal" will begin streaming there on November 14, 2024.