Deadline Mike Fleming reported earlier today that Mel Gibson will co-write and direct a remake of Sam Peckinpah‘s The Wild Bunch for Warner Bros. It hasn’t been stated one way or the other if Gibson’s Bunch will be a straight remake or something else, but one of the paramount Hollywood rules is that you don’t remake a universally admired classic film — you remake a film that wasn’t so good in the first place but which your remake can improve upon.

What could possibly be gained by remaking The Wild Bunch? I know — there are tens of millions of idiots out there who can’t be bothered to stream the original but who would pay to see Gibson’s version, etc. What’s Gibson going to do, make it bloodier? Is he going to find middle-aged actors who can out-point the original performances by William Holden, Robert Ryan, Warren Oates, Ernest Borgnine, etc.?