Why remake one of the greatest films (and that’s not just my opinion) ever made? If you can get Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire to star in it, the better question for any studio might be: Why not?

According to CHUD, the two box office mega-stars may sign on for a remake of The Third Man. The original 1949 film-noir, directed by Carol Reed, starred Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, a pulp author who visits post-World War II Vienna for his friend’s funeral. The dead pal is Harry Lime, a mysterious figure whose grin from out of the shadows was immortalized by the great Orson Welles.

Eastern Promises screenwriter Steven Knight is penning the remake for Canal Plus, which will put the package out for bidding. The outstanding questions regarding Knight’s screenplay are: Will it be updated for a modern setting? Will the action be transposed from Vienna to somewhere else, for example, the Middle East?

It also remains unknown which roles DiCaprio and Maguire will play, although the smart money seems to be on the former stepping into Welles’ shoes, the latter into Cotten’s.

Whether or not this remake eventually comes together, let’s hope Knight keeps the famous ferris wheel scene, in which Lime talks about how great art emerges from strife and misery, while 500 years of democracy and peace in Switzerland only gave us the cuckoo clock.