Universal has been trying to reboot CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON forever. The list of writers and directors attached to the project is exhausting; heck, I still have the JOHN CARPENTER’S CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON script! No stranger to remakes, THE CRAZIES’ Breck Eisner became the latest director to back away from BLACK last year.

Shock Till You Drop spoke with Eisner, who sounded genuinely bummed about departing LAGOON. “It suffered from the realities of development hell and writers’ strikes,” he says. “I don’t think it will see the light of day for a while.”

The director believes THE WOLFMAN’s disappointing box office has hurt CREATURE’s chances. “Oh yeah. Between that and spending a lot of money in development, it’s money against the movie. When a movie is that close to happening, it takes a long time for people to forget about spending that money and to be re-engaged in it. I’d love for somebody to make that movie. It won’t be me.

“It would have been risky and amazing. The design of the Creature by Mark ‘Crash’ McCreery was awesome. True to the original, yet obviously updated for today’s technology. The journey on the Rita, the boat design, it was ready to go. Scouting Peru, Brazil, Columbia. We went into the jungle of mirrors. It was an amazing experience. I didn’t come out of it empty-handed but I didn’t come out with a movie, which is what I would have wanted.”

Carl Rinsch is the latest director to be attached to CREATURE; he was originally scheduled to do the ALIEN prequel, which is now being helmed by Ridley Scott. But don’t get your CREATURE hopes up—Rinsch is already attached to another remake: LOGAN’S RUN.

 

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