[CCIP]

I'm with Steve on this one - there is certainly actual room for good content in the remake, considering the gaps between the source novel and the film version. Buchheim himself voiced criticism of the film originally, especially what he felt like the more glorified and spectacular elements of it.

The problem of course is that I'm not sure any new movie would actually head away from (rather than towards) those spectacular elements, and then there's of course the shadow left by Das Boot itself - IMO the script of the film might've been different or better, but it's going to be very very hard to do better than the interior camera work and acting in that movie. In those two things, that movie holds as well today as it did 30 years ago. Both of those are not something that today's technology can make better in any meaningful way, and especially if you take Prochnow's performance as Der Alte - that is a hugely intimidating role to live up to.

You could compare this, of course, to something like Stanislaw Lem's novel "Solaris" and its best-known adaptations. Tarkovsky's 1972 adaptation, which was openly disliked by Lem himself (much like Buchheim who did not like Das Boot the film), is widely lauded as a cinema classic and a landmark art film. Soderbergh's 2002 adaptation, starring George Clooney, is technically closer to the content and spirit of Lem's novel - and very competently made - but it ended up totally forgettable, and never got out of the shadow its predecessor. And that's even though it never tried to copy its predecessor, treated source material with respect, and didn't have to deal with any of the technical (not to mention political) limitations that Tarkovsky had to work with. So make of that what you will.

I really suspect that even a well-meant and competent remake of Das Boot will end up just like that.

PS - also, Das Boot was by far the best of Wolfgang Petersen's films, and as a director his Hollywood output has been... underwhelming. In truth, everything he's made since Das Boot has been pure Hollywood cheese (even if it's sometimes fun cheese, as in the case of Air Force One). Even if he is attached to a Das Boot remake, that won't be much reason to celebrate - actually, that'll just make me worry more.