October 5, 2009 
source: slashfilm.com
The cast of the American remake of the Swedish vampire flick Let The Right One In has been announced, with Australia’s own Kodi Smit-McPhee nabbing the lead role.
Overture Films announced that Smit-McPhee will play the bullied young boy Owen. Chloe Moretz will star as the vampiric object of his affections, Abby. In the original film, they were known as Oskar and Eli. Rumours of Smit-McPhee and Moretz’s casting emerged in July, which we responded to favourably.
Academy Award nominee Richard Jenkins will star as Abby’s mysterious handler/helper. Although the character’s name has not been announced, he was known as Hakan in the Swedish film.
As previously reported, Cloverfield helmer Matt Reeves will direct. Production begins next month in New Mexico, with a projected release set for 2010. The picture will be retitled Let Me In.
We’re big fans of Tomas Alfredson‘s Let The Right One In here at Quickflix. I personally think it’s one of the best films of the past two years and cannot recommend it highly enough. Although I would normally petition ANY remake of such a recent (and awesome film), I feel confident with Reeves and this cast on board. And even if it sucks, it’ll make a wider audience aware of the perfectly disturbing original.
13-year-old Smit-McPhee will next be seen alongside Viggo Mortensen in John Hillcoat‘s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road.
Discuss: Your thoughts on Let Me In? Is a remake necessary?
Quickflix 
It was only a matter of time before this was going to happen, but didn't think it'd be quite so soon! haha It's unnecessary, but like that stops them. There's a trend in Hollywood cherry-picking European flicks and remaking them as their own. They don't tend to do well.I recall "No Reservations" with Catherine Zeta Jones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Reservations_%28film%29It was based on the German film "Mostly Martha":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostly_Martha_%28film%29For people into foreign film, a American remake is unnecessary. But I guess it's a cheap flick to make … just buy the rights to the story and cast away. Off the shelf. And perhaps more palatable for those who shy away from foreign films.It's not always totally bad tho because the US remake of Queer as Folk was quite good.
Also, the American remake of The Office.
There's a blog post: (re)Made in the USA. Foreign/indie films remade for US audience.I feel the same way about remakes of classic cinema too. A remake of All About Eve or Sunset Boulevard could never be done.
I don't think remakes in themselves are necessarily bad. Remember, Carpenter's The Thing, Scorcese's The Departed, Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven, Nolan's Insomnia, Cronenberg's The Fly and even Wyler's Ben Hur were all remakes. Also, book and comic adaptations are all 'remakes' to some extent.
Fair enough, there are SOME good remakes…but I think you've listed just about all of them. If we were to list all the BAD remakes however, we would be here for quite a while.I really liked the original and so I'm pretty aprensive of this remake and it's inferior title ("Let Me In" – c'mon!)Still, the cast and crew involved is pretty strong – Jenkins rocks, and Chloe Moretz was good in (500) Days of Summer (and I can't wait to see her in Kickass)All in all…I guess I'm still on the fence. Maybe once we see a trailer…
Renaming Eli to Abby is typically American. Eli was a strange name in the film/book, which is reflected upon in the story because Eli is neither male nor female, but vampire. Oskar comments on this name being strange for a girl. Eli is an androgynous name, like Cody. Abby… I haven't met any dudes called Abby.
Perhaps it's short for Abraham?
In Let the Right One In, we never got any idea of how old Eli really was, and perhaps his/her name, being a little unusual, reflects that idea, as it's hard to guess what it may be short for, if anything.A name like Eli could belong to a boy or a girl, from any era, thus leaving this vampires true age and gender a complete mystery.Just one among many things which makes this particular vampire movie a little more intriguing (and better) than the norm.By re-naming Eli, they've taken away a bit of the mystery, so I hope they haven't made any more major changes, as these unanswered questions are the reason Let The Right One In worked so well….even my 70+ year old mother thought it was a good flick !