Nicole Kidman Nearly Starred In One Of The Worst Horror Remakes Of All Time

Remakes are often viewed with tremendous suspicion by moviegoers, especially when the film getting revisited is a bona-fide classic. This is because the rationale for most remakes is pure exploitation. The studio holds the rights to a property that once made it a gazillion dollars, and, because the money people have decided the original's laid fallow long enough, the time is right to splash a fresh coat of paint on it and see if a new generation of viewers will fork over cash to check out a gussied-up retread.

There have certainly been worthwhile remakes over the years (e.g. David Cronenberg's "The Fly," John Carpenter's "The Thing," and Brian De Palma's "Scarface"), but those were made with tremendous care and purpose by people who had a passion for the material. For the most part, you wind up with lifeless dreck such as 2014's "RoboCop," 2005's "The Fog," and 2006's "The Omen" (the latter of which was so indistinguishable from the original that sole credit for the screenplay went to David Seltzer, who wrote the 1976 film but did absolutely no work on the remake).

Speaking of indistinguishable, what are we to make of 1998's "Psycho," the shot-for-shot Alfred Hitchcock redo directed by Gus Van Sant? Rather than go back to Robert Bloch's original 1959 novel and take a new approach to the material, Van Sant brazenly announced he would ape Hitch's masterpiece. When he was asked why, Van Sant responded, "Why not? It's a marketing scheme. Why does a studio ever remake a film? Because they have this little thing they've forgotten about that they could put in the marketplace and make money from." Evidently, Casey Silver, the head of Universal at the time, found Van Sant's pitch to be a "a very strange idea," but correctly figured the original was bulletproof. The only people risking their reputations would be the director and his cast.

Due to Van Sant's sterling critical reputation, big-name actors were willing to play the characters made famous by Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, and Vera Miles. Indeed, Nicole Kidman was in talks at one point to play the ill-fated Marion Crane. Why didn't she wind up taking the part?

On April 30, 1998, Variety ran a piece rattling off the stars who'd be attempting to measure up to some of the most iconic performances in horror movie history. Vince Vaughn was being sought to play Norman Bates, Julianne Moore was in talks to portray Lila Crane, and William H. Macy had an offer to take a tumble down the Bates' steep staircase as Detective Milton Arbogast.

Most intriguing, however, was the fact that Van Sant was eying Nicole Kidman to play Marion. Though she hadn't appeared in any massive hits outside of "Batman Forever," Kidman was still a celebrated actor with the highest of profiles due to her magazine-cover glamor (and marriage to Tom Cruise). The idea of a major celebrity like Kidman replacing Leigh in the film's infamous shower scene promised to add additional sizzle to Van Sant's remake. Given that Van Sant had directed Kidman in her finest film to date, "To Die For," this seemed like perfect casting.

Unfortunately, Kidman, who'd just wrapped the 15-month shoot of Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" at the time, had scheduling conflicts which kept her from taking the role. Instead, Anne Heche wound up doing an admirable job as Marion in a film that's interesting as a meta commentary on the nature of remakes, but less satisfying as a horror movie. When you want to watch "Psycho," you go straight to Hitchcock's original.