Tony Scott and the retaking of ‘Pelham 123’

To hear Tony Scott explain it, his updating of the hostage drama “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” extends much further than just numerically altering the title. The director-producer touts his “The Taking of Pelham 123,” which hits theaters June 12, as a total “reinvention” of the 1974 thriller widely considered one of the decade’s classic films.

To wit, the casting: Who better to replace Walter Matthau’s wisecracking Transit Police lieutenant than the baronial Denzel Washington? (Except now, the character’s a disgraced subway dispatcher.) John Travolta chews scenery in the lead terrorist part that an icy Robert Shaw inhabits in the original. And James Gandolfini puts some psychic distance between himself and Tony Soprano portraying the new movie’s beleaguered mayor.

Then there’s the new film’s showcasing of contemporary technologies: live-blogging, webcams and online commodity trading in pursuit of a criminal vendetta. And, of course, terrorist dramas mean something totally different in the post-Sept. 11 era.

Still, there are certain unmistakable consistencies that won’t be lost on fans of the first “Pelham” (or, for that matter, those who endured the poorly received 1998 TV version starring Edward James Olmos). Like the others, Scott’s reimagining follows hijackers who overtake a New York subway car, demanding ransom and shooting hostages. And as with the original, you see law enforcement efforts to stop them vis a vis logy city bureaucracy and urban ennui. As well, there’s a third-act plot twist involving the override of the subway train’s “dead-man’s switch” -- a fail-safe intended to ensure a driver is always at the controls.

“People kept asking, ‘Does it have the sneeze at the end?’ Nope,” Scott said. “Even though it’s the same basic story, the films have very different sensibilities.”

Yet, for classic film lovers -- not to mention original “Pelham One Two Three” cast member Hector Elizondo, who called Scott’s decision to update it “too bad” and said “they shouldn’t mess with it” in a recent interview -- the fundamental question lingers: Why “reinvent” a beloved film in the first place?

Before answering, Scott put his feet up on a garage door-sized table at the West Hollywood office of his commercial and video production company, leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. With that, he began explaining -- not justifying -- what led him to the project.

“Brian Helgeland, the writer, came to me two years ago and said he was going to reinvent it, put a spin on it,” he said. “He always comes up with something that inspires me.”

In contrast to many of Scott’s high-octane, explosion-and-shootout-a-minute films such as “Man on Fire” and “Domino,” “Pelham’s” two leads verbally spar over the phone for more than two-thirds of the movie. “That was a big challenge for me,” Scott admitted.

Turns out Washington and Travolta resisted meeting each other until near the end of filming to help stoke aggression between their characters, respectively, a valiant but flawed hero and a rage-fueled homicidal maniac.

“That was Denzel’s idea,” Scott said. “A dynamic tension came out of that where you can see both guys springboard off each other on the phone. They were on separate sides of the studio for the entire shoot.”

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chris.lee@latimes.com

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Get the adrenaline rushing with these upcoming action thrillers.

‘Surveillance’: Two serial killers are tracked with the aid of some would-be victims, all of whom have a different take on things. June 26.

‘G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra’: Yes, it’s that G.I. Joe, in a live-action story of a high-tech special ops force that takes on the evil Cobra organization. Aug. 7.

‘Whiteout’: Graphic novel adaptation finds a U.S. marshal tracking a killer in Antarctica before six months of darkness sets in. Sept. 11.

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SUMMER MOVIE MEMORIES

‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat.’

“Jaws,” June 20, 1975