AS the new version of The Nutty Professor opens in the US today with Eddie Murphy in the Jerry Lewis role Hollywood's penchant for remakes continues unabated and nothing seems to be sacred. Producer Tom Jacobson is developing a remake of the 1955 black comedy, The Lad killers and there will be some crucial changes the old lady at the centre of the original will be much younger the second time around and Jacobson says, "there will be an unlikely romance".

Roger Avary, who made an uninspired directing debut with Killing Zoe, is being let loose on Frederick Knott's play, Dial M For Murder, previously filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1953. Frederick Forsyth's novel, The Day of the Jackal, filmed by Fred Zinnemann in 1973, is set for a remake to be directed by Michael Caton Jones. And, as reported here recently, Diana Ross is developing and planning to star in the US remake of the 1982 French movie, Diva.