The Big Chill is being remade and there will be two huge changes to the story. The first and most obvious is that the whole film will be modernised. The second, and more interesting change, is that the story is to be rewritten for a group of African-American friends.

The Big Chill was originally was written by Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedek with Kasdan also directing. The story had a group of thirty-something college friends meeting up again after the funeral of a mutual friend has brought them back together. As they get to know each other and where there lives have gone since they were together.

It has a superb cast, a quick appearance from Kevin Costner as the dead friend is interesting, it seems that most of his scenes were deleted from the film. It also stars Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt and Kevin Kline.

I think it might be very interesting to have this film remade with an entirely black cast, after all the original was entirely white and concentrated on the beliefs and issues of their middle class life growing up together, so it would be interesting to see this ensemble piece turned around and looked at from a completely different perspective. It's almost a shame that the film couldn't be made in the same era so that there was even more of a comparison.

The story from Variety tells us that the original script will be used as a template for this one, but with so much work to be done updating and changing the characters, I think this could end up being radically different from the original. However the story does say that the original script idea will remain the same, and that music will remain a strong part of the film.

Already Regina King is signed up to act in the film, a very strong talent that is already showing the intention to keep the cast as strong as the original. I wonder who else they could take onboard to rival that strong original casting. Suggestions please.