Movies
‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ Taps New Director for Revival
I’ve been dreaming of a big budget Creature from the Black Lagoon ever since it was rumored all of those years ago. While it looks like the creature may (finally) rise once again, I’m fearful that if The Wolfman tanks, so will this project. And if Wolfman is a terrible movie, what does that mean for our beloved Creature if the same studio is behind it? I shutter to think about it. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, who knows what the future holds, and Universal has hired a new director to replace Breck Eisner. Who is it? Read on for the skinny.
Universal Pictures is in early talks with Carl Erik Rinsch to direct “Creature From The Black Lagoon,” the remake of the 1954 U film about an undersea creature that terrorizes a scientific expedition.
Strike Entertainment’s Marc Abraham and Eric Newman produce with Gary Ross.
Deal would be the second big U picture for Rinsch, who will make his feature directing debut on “47 Ronin,” the epic period samurai swordsmen tale that takes place in 18th Century Japan, and will star Keanu Reeves. That picture is expected to begin production next year.
Rinsch shoots highly visual commercials for RSA owners Ridley and Tony Scott. The Scotts once courted Rinsch to direct a prequel to “Alien,” until Ridley Scott decided to helm that film, returning to a franchise he originated.
Universal has been keen to reprise “Creature,” one of its most famous monster franchises. In a previous incarnation, the studio had Breck Eisner attached to direct a script by Ross, whose father, Arthur A. Ross, co-wrote the original.
Jennifer Holland (“Peacemaker”) and Dave Annable (“Lioness”) will lead the cast of upcoming supernatural Civil War thriller Brine, Deadline reports this afternoon.
B.J. Golnick (“Hunting Hitler”) will be directing Brine.
Brine follows a family of Confederate deserters who escape the Union bombardment of Fort Pulaski with a cache of stolen gold and disappear into the Georgia marshlands.
When they take refuge in a remote plantation house, what first appears to be salvation slowly reveals itself as part of something ancient, predatory and impossible to escape.
Jonah Wharton (Lioness), Sissy Sheridan (Chicken Girls), and Grayson Lay (Outer Banks) also star. The screenplay was written by B.J. Golnick and Jeremy Miller.
“Brine is a story about survival, but it is also a story about inheritance…The violence we pass down, the myths we create to justify it, and the cost of trying to break free,” Golnick previews.
“We intend for the film to feel intimate, historically grounded and deeply unnerving, as if the supernatural elements weren’t invented, but unearthed from the marsh itself.”