Is Max Landis Writing a ‘Creature From the Black Lagoon’ Remake? If So, Can He Not?

 

The Dark Universe might still be alive…and in the hands of Max Landis. A new rumor has surfaced that the Victor Frankenstein writer might be penning a script for a Creature From the Black Lagoon remake. The question is: does anyone want this?

Here’s something new I learned today (h/t The Playlist): there’s a Max Landis subreddit. On this subreddit, a user pointed out that in a recent Instagram Story, Landis mentioned projects he’s working on, with abbreviated names. One was AWIL, which is most-likely the American Werewolf in London remake. The other abbreviation: CFBL. This could mean anything, but the Reddit thread jumped to the conclusion that this stood for Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Landis himself popped onto the Reddit thread to comment on the post, saying “Damn man”, and then add: “Stuff is working at a more normal speed right now, so things will be along on a more normal schedule.” In other words, he didn’t confirm the Black Lagoon remake, but he didn’t deny it either.

As you may remember, Universal recently tried to re-launch their classic Universal Monsters into a big new cinematic universe dubbed Dark Universe. It kicked-off with The Mummy starring Tom Cruise, and things didn’t go so well. After that, the second scheduled Dark Universe film – Bride of Frankenstein – shut down during pre-production. Since then, Dark Universe masterminds Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan departed, leaving everyone to assume the idea was dead and buried.

And now this. Universal owns the Black Lagoon rights, and a Creature remake was originally planned for Dark Universe. It had a story written by Jeff Pinkner and a script written by Will Beall. That script is probably not being used anymore. But if Landis is indeed writing a remake script, he’s writing it for Universal. Which means the studio might still be trying to revive its Dark Universe in some way.

Filmmakers have been trying to remake Creature From the Black Lagoon for years. One of the most prominent was Guillermo del Toro. When del Toro’s Black Lagoon failed to materialize, he went off and eventually told his own version of the story. The result was The Shape of Water, and it turned the Gill-Man-like character into a sexy monster who fucks. And then it won the Best Picture Oscar.

So, why even bother remaking Black Lagoon in the wake of Shape of Water? Any remake will inevitably draw conclusions to that movie, and audiences will be left wondering: will this creature fuck?

Landis is a high-profile screenwriter, but his star has been in decline lately. After the release of the Netflix film Bright, which Landis penned, sexual assault allegations against the screenwriter surfaced. Since then, Landis has kept a low-profile. Until now, that is. We’ll have to wait and see what pans out here. It’s also worth noting that even if Landis is writing a Creature From the Black Lagoon script, there’s no guarantee it’ll ever actually get made.

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