Rod Lurie, director most recently of political thriller Nothing But the Truth starring Kate Beckinsale, recently completed filming on the remake of classic psychological thriller Straw Dogs from 1971, and we were able to corner him backstage at last night’s Saturn Awards to ask him a few questions about the project, including whether it would follow in the uncomfortably brutal footsteps of its forebear. Read on to find out.
“We’re at the end of post-production right now“, the director told me. “I think it’s going fabulously well. You know, it’s a very interesting movie because you’re remaking something that is certainly iconic and I think people have very specific expectations and we hope we [meet] all of them.”

With the film arriving n theaters September 11, 2011 they’re just about to start the testing process. He addresses concerns that the remake will be a toned-down version of the original in order to bring in a wider audience, telling B-D the film will, in fact, be a no-punch-pulling ‘hard-R’:

“I think it’s as intense if not more [than the original]. I keep reading on blogs how we’re gonna have to water things down, and how we’re gonna have to tone down the rape scene, and tone down the violence in the movie, and that’ll be one of the expectations that people have where it’ll [defy] their expectations I think. It’s definitely a hard-`R’, definitely a hard-`R’. It’s a tough film, it’s very exciting and very unnerving I would say. But real edge of your seat stuff, I hope.”

The new Straw Dogs follows Los Angeles screenwriter David Sumner (James Marsden), who moves with his wife to her hometown in the deep South. Once there, tensions build in their marriage and old conflicts re-emerge with the locals, leading to a violent confrontation.