Hit Italian Film gets American Remake
TORONTO – Signs that Italian Cinema is puffing its chest again continue to grow, evidenced by Monday’s announcement that Nick Cassavetes (director of The Notebook) is directing the American remake of Il Ragazzo Dai Pantaloni Rosa, a 2024 smash hit in Italy.
Margherita Ferri’s true story adaptation is about Andrea Spezzacatena, a 15-year-old boy who took his own life after being bullied both on and offline – the bullying exacerbated by a pink pair of trousers he wore to school.
American remaking of Italian films has happened a mere four times, including Fellini’s 8 ½ remade as Nine (2009), La Piscina remade as A Bigger Splash (2015), L’Ultimo Bacio remade as The Last Kiss (2006), and Stanno Tutti Bene remade as Everybody’s Fine (2009). And now Margherita Ferri’s cultural phenomenon The Boy with the Pink Trousers, which is wholly deserving of the Tinseltown makeover.
Financially, Ferri’s film earned $11 million at the Italian Box office, attracting over 2 million moviegoers to the theatres, drawing a bigger attendance than American Blockbusters Gladiator 2 and the Wizard of Oz spinoff Wicked.
Culturally, nearly every school in Italy had arranged special screenings for students, making it essential viewing for Italy’s youth. Post screening testimonials on social media to the tune of “absolute cinema, the theatre was in tears”, trended for weeks.
CEO of Eagle Pictures Tarak Ben Ammar remarked on the film’s resonance: “Unfortunately, Andrea Spezzacatena’s story is not just an Italian story. The tragic phenomenon of minors committing suicide due to bullying and cyberbullying has become a global scourge that cinema has a duty to address”.
Tarak’s sentiment becomes amplified considering the pink trousers were the result of a laundry mishap which turned his red pants pink.
Andrea’s self-assuredness was unfortunately tested in a grotesque way, leaving him sick with loneliness from the ostracization and unending ridicule. Ben Ammar feels that the film “Made a difference for hundreds of thousands of young people”, and hopes that “with the American remake, we have the chance to achieve the same effect on millions of people worldwide”.
Director Nick Cassavetes shared his thoughts during Monday’s announcement: “This movie has all the makings of a great film. Family, adolescence, first love, but also the terrible reminder that every child, no matter how put together they seem to be on the outside, is vulnerable, and needs to be looked after closely. It’s a gut punch. It’s a powerhouse”.
Undeniably, an American remake bodes well for all parties and causes, and will bring more eyes to Andrea’s story and Ferri’s heartfelt screen adaptation. And while the American practice of remaking a foreign film for marketplace appeal is as perplexing as Italy’s film dubbing industry, this Italo-American partnership has all the potential to soar.
Images courtesy of Eagle Pictures
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
