Every week comes news of plans to remake another copper-bottomed classic. Sometimes the new versions are surprisingly tasty. More often they smell like last week’s pilchards.

Fans of all things decent were particularly annoyed when it was announced that Hitchcock's The Birdswas to be remade by a company associated with the dread Michael Bay. What can you do? Well, you can batter the keyboard until your fingers turn red for a start.

It seems that the folk at Platinum Dunes, flagship of Bay’s evil empire, were so taken aback at the negative chatter on the internet that they have shelved plans for the film.

“As you guys know, we lay ourselves out there and get annihilated out there online all day long, and that movie just opens us up to a whole different level of annihilation,” Brad Fuller, Dunes outrider,

said last week. “As a producer, you pursue a bunch of things, and the ones that come to fruition you make and the other ones you try and it’s a good effort … But it doesn’t feel like [The Birds] is up next for us.”

The film was set to star Naomi Watts in the Tippi Hedren role, but Hedren herself has never been happy with the idea. “Why would you do that? Why?’ I mean, can’t we find new stories, new things to do?” Thanks to the good people of the internet, it looks as if Bay and co will have to.