In many ways, this October has very much been the month of iconic horror properties getting retrofitted into prestige TV series.
From Carrie to Crystal Lake, numerous classic horror properties got modern reduxes this year on television, and it doesn’t look as though that’s going to slow down anytime soon. In fact, HBO has just officially confirmed that they are moving forward with a limited series adaptation of the monumental Alfred Hitchcock horror masterpiece, The Birds, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter.
For those unfamiliar, The Birds was a 1963 horror film from the “master of suspense,” starring an ensemble of heavy-hitting performers, including Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor. Like many of Hitchcock's movies, the film was itself an adaptation of a pre-existing work: Daphne du Maurier’s short story, The Birds, from her 1952 collection, The Apple Tree. Thus, there is something of a lineage of adaptation that this new HBO series will be tapping into.
Alongside the confirmation that the project is moving forward even amidst all the merger hoopla, HBO also confirmed that Succession’s own Emmy Award-winner Sarah Snook is set to star and executive produce the series. The report also confirmed that Snook is not taking over a pre-existing role but rather playing an entirely new character.
According to the report, the script for the pilot will be written by Tom Speial, who has previously been a collaborator of Damon Lindelof on HBO shows like The Leftovers and Watchmen. The series will update the setting to the present-day.
Of course, the biggest hurdle that the series will face is how to make the show a worthy contribution to the larger legacy of this cultural touchstone. Hitchcock’s The Birds takes the wide-canvas chaos of Daphne du Maurier’s short story and translates it so harrowingly and invasively to the screen in a way that will be difficult for anyone to replicate, much less attempt to surpass in any way.
If all you know of The Birds is through cultural osmosis (i.e. “there are birds attacking people”), I cannot recommend it as a watch enough. It’s the most A-list director tackling a concept that could’ve been little more than B-list schlock but bringing every caliber of his power to it in insatiable ways. It remains one of the most suspenseful and dread-inducing creature features ever put to the screen, and it deserves to be remembered as such.
Part of the reason that isn’t as evident in the cultural memory today as it once was is the sheer number of films since then that have attempted to riff on some variation of this same concept. In many ways, making a The Birds project today is akin to attempting to make a Jaws project; so many other adjacent properties have been liberally cribbing from its playbook for decades, and yet the original remains heads-and-shoulders above any of its imitators.
So as a new work, how do you both fend off comparisons to those lesser works and achieve something truly worthy of the title? I think the primary answer is simply to make the best work you possibly can, and truly aim for nothing less than upholding the legacy of Hitchcock’s masterpiece.
I will be incredibly fascinated to see what becomes of HBO’s The Birds, how it adapts Hitchcock’s film for a new generation, and whether or not modern audiences respond to such an effort. At this time, there is no release date in place.
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