ReelzChannel spoke to Gary Ross (Big, Seabiscuit) today about his plans to remake Creature From the Black Lagoon. Ross is currently doing press for his upcoming animated adaptation of the children's classic The Tale of Despereaux.
As some may already know, Ross is the son of iconic B-movie writer Arthur A. Ross, who penned the original Creature film as well as the sequel The Creature Walks Among Us. The elder Ross recently passed away, and his son hopes to pay homage to his father by writing and producing the remake.
"It’s going great," Ross said with a big smile. "We’re actually moving forward. My dad wrote the original, so it’s not a reference to what the original is. We take it sort of seriously. We found some scientific underpinnings for it, which my dad actually developed in the original. He actually based it on a lungfish that was found around that time.”
Ross says the decision of whether the Creature would be computer generated or a guy in a suit like the original has not yet been made. "A lot of the decisions as far as CG versus practical will obviously be made by the director down the line.”
Although Ross admits to being excited about the project, he was careful to mention that it is not yet greenlit"We hope to be making it sometime next year, so I don’t want to send the wrong impression," said Ross.
Rob Zombie (The Devil's Rejects, Halloween) has already expressed interest in the project, but Ross would neither confirm nor deny the rumor: “I can’t actually talk about it, but we are talking to some directors,” Ross told ReelzChannel.
“I think we’re going to treat it with a certain amount of dignity," added Ross. "It's not campy [or] retro. It’s set present day. It should be a really interesting journey into the jungle, both for the characters and for the audience."
Posted 12.04.08 by reelz