Wouldn’t it be lovely to remake My Fair Lady? Columbia Pictures is planning just that but will retain the musical score and setting of the original.

I was quite taken aback when I read that Columbia Pictures is all set to remake the 1964 cult classic My Fair Lady, and that Keira Knightley will play the cockney waif Eliza Doolittle, simply because I didn’t think anyone would be brave enough to touch the Oscar-winning movie.

Apparently, producers Duncan Kenworthy who has previously produced hits like Notting Hill, Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Sir Cameron Mackintosh producer of successful Broadway musicals, do not share my view.

The grapewine has it that Knightley has been signed on for My Fair Lady and Daniel Day-Lewis is being wooed to reprise the role of snooty professor Henry Higgins.

The rags-to-riches transformation of impetuous waifs aided by upper crust gentlemen is old hat for the movies, a classic example being Pretty Woman.

Wisely, the latest production of My Fair Lady will stick to the original storyline but will draw heavily from the original Pygmalion. It will also keep the 1912 setting and the original music score featuring  I Could Have Danced All Night, Wouldn’t it Be Lovely and Get Me to the Church on Time.

The 1956 Broadway production of My Fair Lady, a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, starring Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle and Rex Harrison as Higgins was a huge hit. The 1965 movie version of My Fair Lady that won eight Oscars starred Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. Duncan Kenworthy, Cameron Mackintosh, and CBS Films have a lot to live up to.

Can they pull it off? According to the filmmakers, the My Fair Lady remake will attempt to flesh out the characters, especially that of Eliza Doolittle, and shoot on actual locations to recreate 1912 London in an authentic manner. If they are able to lend more depth to Eliza Doolittle’s character (which was not very well etched out in the original), the remake would be very interesting to watch.

Successful musicals are tough to beat but Mackintosh has produced two stage revivals of My Fair Lady, one in 1979 and the other in 2001, which is a distinct advantage. Mackintosh has also produced many of the West End’s and Broadway’s successful musicals, such as “Cats,” “Les Miserables” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”

The next question is who should be cast as Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins?

Keira Knightley, said to be already on board,  looks like an utterly luvverly waif, no doubt, but can she top Audrey Hepburn’s gamine minx? Personally, she lacks the vividity and verve of Audrey Hepburn and is likely to end up as a pale imitation. On the plus side, she can sing (Audrey Hepburn’s vocals were dubbed.)

Conversely, Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will be Blood and Last of the Mohicans) is too vivid to play the stuffy, but sharp-tongued, Henry Higgins. Sadly, there are not too many alternatives. Orlando Bloom, Jude Law, James McAvoy  - too young. Colin Firth  - too Mr. Darcy. Daniel Craig is, well, too Bond. That leaves only Rupert Everett and Liam Neeson. I would definitely refer Neeson over Daniel Day-Lewis.

Keira Knightley, who was first noticed in the small-budget Bend it Like Beckam, made it big with Atonement, Pride and Prejudice and the Pirates of the Caribbean. Knightley is on a roll as far as period films are concerned with movies like The Edge Of Love, The Duchess, and King Lear in the pipeline.

So will the remake work? There is a good chance that it will. If nothing else, the curiosity value should pull in the crowds.