Universal’s Dark Universe, to be based on all if its classic monster properties, was a massive misfire after 2017’s dreadful reboot of The Mummy (which even Tom Cruise’s antics couldn’t save) fell short of franchise-building expectations and got panned by critics and audiences alike. That didn’t stop Universal from trying again with a simpler, director-driven approach to reviving old horror properties, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon is next in line to be modernised.
We’re still waiting to see how the upcoming Wolf Man reboot pans out, but 2020’s pre-Covid Invisible Man reboot was a compelling and meaningful update of the original horror concept, so there’s some juice to this renewed strategy of standalone horror flicks which simply let each filmmaker reimagine monsters we’ve known for decades.
1954’s Creature from the Black Lagoon continues to be one of those traditional monster movies that pop up every now and then in remake conversations, and now Deadline is reporting that horror veteran James Wan, who’s also tackled huge blockbusters like Furious 7 and the two Aquaman movies, might be the filmmaker diving head first into those dark waters.
The project is being developed by Atomic Monster and Universal Pictures as “a grounded modernized retelling that leans into visceral horror while paying respect to the original classic.” If you’re unaware, Atomic Monster and Blumhouse, Hollywood’s two biggest mainstream ‘horror houses’ at the moment, have joined forces, and they’re already planning other major revivals such as a new Blair Witch movie (on top of their usual original projects).
For Wan, this is an endeavour that just makes sense. The (largely underwater) Aquaman movies already had a surprising amount of horror DNA in them, and he also managed to make the utterly unhinged horror feature Malignant in between those DCEU entries, which signaled he never planned on leaving horror behind.
His take on Creature from the Black Lagoon could be both fresh and classical-feeling, and the premise alone, which follows a piscine amphibious humanoid and the ensuing terror it causes, is an easy sell after the massive success of Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017), especially if there’s a twisted romance angle in this version.
