Creature from the Black Lagoon - REMAKE

[dwatts]

Likely old old news. but it was new for me. Got it from the Fangoria site:

"Del Toro has another title on his must-do wish list: the long-in-development remake of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. The 1954 classic, helmed by monster master Jack Arnold, has at different stages been on the agendas of directors ranging from John Carpenter to John Landis. How serious is this latest reincarnation? “Very serious indeed,” del Toro says. “Universal is going through their entire back monster catalog thanks to the success of the MUMMY movies. Stephen Sommers’ VAN HELSING continues that. I’d rather direct CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON than watch someone else screw it up. That was my thought when Universal called me in for talks.

“I’ll be given carte blanche to develop the story, although I will bring in another writer,” he continues. “I want to set the story in Victorian times during the exploration of the Amazon. The original Creature was essentially King Kong, but I want to make it more a ‘beauty and the beast’ fable. I want the look and feel to be akin to Jules Verne’s tales like 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. I want to increase the horror edge and make it really scary, because my archaeological explorers will discover an area of the Amazon that has been kept on a tangential track of evolution alongside mankind. So there will be giant carnivorous squid, prehistoric sharks and weird alternate lifeforms that shouldn’t really exist in such a fresh-water environment. Fish do truly have either an angelic or devilish quality, and I want to play on that.

“The Creature will be the Man of this exotic world,” del Toro explains. “He will be very smart and able to turn the tables on his human hunters. I have a scene where the hunters find fossil remains and realize that the Creature’s brain cavity is larger than a human one. He’s not the lumbering, roaring monster of Ricou Browning’s day, but a sophisticated Gill Man that will come to life through a mix of CGI and a man in a suit. In the original film, the Creature falls in love with the Julie Adams character. The twist in my version is that the girl will also fall in love with him. I want her to almost get it on with the Creature!”

Discussions with Universal also included talks about the possibility of filming in 3-D, since the original was one of the best examples of that popular early-’50s attraction. “I did propose that,” del Toro reveals, “but the problem is that such a process would severely limit the number of venues in which it could be released. And you cannot use 3-D as an afterthought, because it’s quite a cumbersome and complex technique. More interesting as a gimmick would be the casting of Benicio Del Toro [the Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winner for TRAFFIC]. We’re not related despite sharing the unusual surname, but I found out Benicio is a totally obsessed fan of the original film. I know this for a fact, and I know he would kill to be in the remake. Nothing has been discussed yet about that possibility at any level, but del Toro directing Del Toro—now that would be something interesting.”


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