‘The Creature From The Black Lagoon’ Gets A Water-Friendly Screenwriter
This summer’s new take onThe Mummydoesn’t even open for a few more months, but Universal keeps on digging in their heels and doubling down on their new monsters universe. And while the studio waits with bated breath to see if there’s a blockbuster-sized audience for this new venture, they keep on hiring writers to shepherd new characters to the screen. And for their new take onThe Creature From the Black Lagoon, a writer already very familiar with lead characters who are more able in water than on land has nabbed the job.
According to a report inThe Hollywood Reporter, screenwriterWill Beallhas been tasked with resurrecting the gill-man for the 21st century. Beall is no stranger to writing water-loving characters in cinematic universes – he recently wroteAquamanfor Warner Bros., which is just about to go before cameras under the direction of James Wan. Beall’s other credits include episodes ofCastle, the newTraining Dayseries, andGangster Squad.
As with many of Universal’s other pending monsters projects (the line-up includesThe Wolfman,Frankenstein,The Invisible Man,Van Helsingand more), there’s no rigid release date for the newCreature From the Black Lagoon. You get the impression that everyone is waiting to see what goes down withThe Mummybefore committing to anything beyond script pages.
Building a New Creature
I’m choosing to remain “glass half-full” when it comes to the new Universal monster movies (The Mummylooks pretty cool, even if it doesn’t look like a horror movie), so I’m ready to look on the brightest possible side of a newCreature From the Black Lagoon. Specifically, a new version, built to be part of a shared universe, could trulybelongto the Universal monster family in a way that the previous version did not.
Released in 1954, the originalThe Creature From the Black Lagoonis the weird cousin of the “core” Universal monsters. Arriving long after the heyday of Dracula, the Mummy, Frankenstein, and the Wolf Man (who collectively ruled the ’30s and the early ’40s), it is seen by many genre fans as the final “classic” Universal monster movies. Others have argued that it is just a monster movie produced by Universal, not a “proper” Universal monster film. This debate still rages today and it’s understandable – the gill-man doesn’t seem to have a lot in common with the wounded, gothic creatures of those early films. Well, not until 1956’sThe Creature Walks Among Us, where the gill-man is elevated to something so much more complex. In one of the most underrated horror movies of all time, that horny fish-manbecame a desperate and tragic figure driven to suicide by the actions of man. It’s a great movie.
While I remain a fan of the original movie, a remake has the opportunity to start where that final film left off and create a central monster who is more layered, complex, and at-home with his complicated Universal brethren. With the right approach, Beall could build aCreature From the Black Lagoonmovie that definitively establishes the gill-man as a permanent resident of the Universal monster family, not a tourist.
