Modification of stories from the 1950s up happens a lot in Germany today, especially in reprints of pulp literature as in SciFi or even rather modern horror stories from the 70s.
Sometimes with the consent of the original authors, sometimes without, because the editors feel a sort of "compulsive act" to alter the original script, to enhance it. Yeah, well ...
Readers don't seem to mind a lot, maybe it's the fact that they are glad the stories of their youth get reprinted at all.
But it would indeed be funny to write a modern version of Goethe's "Faust" - true to the original, of course - and wait for the response.
