For få dager siden ble det kjent at Martin Scorsese skal lage en remake av The Gambler med Leonardo DiCaprio i hovedrollen. Originalen fra 1974 er basert på et selvbiografisk manus av James Toback, men Toback fikk ikke høre om remake-planene før nyheten kom ut i pressen. Toback kritiserer det han mener er uhøflig og respektløs oppførsel i et innlegg på Deadline.com.

– It might seem odd that my initial response to the news of the purported remake would be something south of “flattered and honored,” but the truth is that my main feeling was one of disbelief that I was learning of these plans at the same time and in the same fashion as any of the regular devoted readers of this column.

Han forteller at det som gjør ham spesielt overrasket er at han er venn med Leonardo DiCaprio og Irwin Winkler, produsenten av originalen, skal også produsere den nye versjonen, og allikevel har det ingen av dem kontaktet ham. Som en kontrast trekker han frem en tidligere, langt mer positiv, erfaring med remakes.

– Perhaps my inability to view this “tribute” as primarily flattering was additionally influenced by a recent and infinitely more felicitous experience which involved remarkably similar circumstances. My movie, Fingers, was remade as a Cesar prize-sweeping film, The Beat That My Heart Skipped by Jacques Audiard, the great French filmmaker who called me from Paris and then flew to New York to discuss Fingers in great detail before redoing it, apparently not sharing the current group’s quaint — if indeed entirely legal –notion that as long as they “own” something — even a movie — they are fully entitled to do whatever they wish to it without even bothering to consult its creator.

Manuset til den nye versjonen av The Gambler vil bli skrevet av William Monahan, som skrev Scorseses The Departed.