Memento: forget remaking it?

So AMBI Pictures is remaking Christopher Nolan's Memento… I was mildly shocked when I read the headline, but after a few seconds I had to remind myself that Hollywood ran out of original ideas sometime ago. Or perhaps I should say that Hollywood lost the balls to back an original idea a long time ago.

Let's start with AMBI: who are they? What's their track record? I looked them up and this is what I found out: AMBI is led by Andrea Iervolino and Monika Gomez del Campo Bacardi Lady of Bayfield Hall, better known as “Monika Bacardi”. Their website states: "Iervolino, who has been a producer since the age of 16, has produced, financed and distributed more than 48 features. A partner and founder of a number different production companies, he is currently the youngest and most highly regarded Italian entrepreneur in the filmmaking sector."

Meanwhile, Bacardi is "a businesswoman and a film producer, the co-founder of the AMBI Pictures group, and actively involved in numerous philanthropic ventures".

AMBI acquired Exclusive Media Group in September and thus took ownership of Memento and the likes of Sliding Doors, Donnie Darko, End of Watch, Cruel Intentions and Parkland. According to Screen, Bacardi said: "We will of course carefully vet out the sequel and remake opportunities and determine what fits best with our creative strategies and financing/production model to make sure everything is in proper alignment."

Its Z-list start aside (Michael Madsen and Stephen Baldwin??), AMBI's slate is respectable: talent like James Franco and Barry Levinson have more recently worked with them. I accept that every fledgling studio has to start somewhere, but a Memento remake doesn't sound all that promising. Empire put its best with its tweet: "Don't they remember how good it was?"

But with the growth of the international market, primarily the Asian markets and China in particular, one can't avoid the bald financial truth: Memento only pulled in $39m in 2001, long before 'Christopher Nolan' became the most bankable director in the world. Depending on the cast, you could remake it now for no more than $50m, say, and if you went for a star who's bankable in Asia, you could make all your money back in those territories alone - without the film actually being any good. What if the remake was good?

As an example of the latter, I offer the Infernal Affairs/The Departed scenario. I love Infernal Affairs: tense, action-packed, and full of heart, it's simply one of my favourite films. But there's no escaping it only did $8m worldwide in 2004: Tony Leung and Andy Lau, great actors as they are, are virtually unheard of outside Asia. But the film won outstanding reviews, and the film's central plot device caught the attention of Hollywood.

Within two years, The Departed arrived, directed by Martin Scorsese, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Jack Nicholson, et al. From a production budget of $90m, it raked in a few dollars short of $290m and won the Best Film and Best Director Oscars. Clearly a lot of people who were blissfully unaware of the original, enjoyed The Departed: is that a valid enough reason for the remake? For what it's worth, I thought the film was over-wrought, the additional twists and turns of the plot were unnecessary, and it was not a patch on the original. But writer William Monahan did a thorough re-write, giving The Departed a strong sense of a different time and a different place.

So, hold tight for the Memento remake: it will be intriguing to see who they engage as scriptwriter, director and cast, etc. Who will be prepared to step into those shoes? Will the end result be, ahem, memorable?