Remake of "The Monster Squad" in the works?!
 

July 16, 2008


The 1987 cult classic The Monster Squad may be getting the remake treatment soon courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Rob Cohen, director of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

In an interview this week, Cohen revealed that he's "talking with Paramount about the ownership rights, we just found out that because of all the different companies being bought and sold, (it was so hard to do) but we believe all the rights are back at Paramount."

Cohen, a self-proclaimed fan of the Fred Dekker-directed original film, added, "I have been waiting to finish this (Mummy 3) film, to really start the talks about remaking it. Maybe I would direct, maybe someone else with me producing."

The original Monster Squad followed a group of adolescent monster geeks who take on cinema's most iconic monsters -- Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, and the Creature From the Black Lagoon -- in order to prevent the forces of evil from shifting the cosmic balance in their favor.

In wouldn't mind this remake at all - as long as it's well done.

Rob Cohen is remaking the Monster Squad? Looks the Wolfman isn't the only one who's got some nards!

ha! excellent.:D

December 11, 2008


IGN chatted with director Rob Cohen this week for the DVD release of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, during which time we had the chance to ask him about his upcoming project, the remake of The Monster Squad.

Here's what he had to say:

IGN: Okay, I have to ask this question because the movie is a favorite of mine, but where are you on the proposed Monster Squad remake?

ROB COHEN: I'm trying to get Paramount to do that. After doing all the legal tracing of who owned the rights…it turns out the rights reside with Paramount. And trying to get the guys over there to look at it, you'd think it was a lifetime commitment…I think some of the movies I made in that period like Legend of Billie Jean and Running Man and Monster Squad, they were, in a funny way, ahead of their time. If Monster Squad was made today, just the way that Fred [Dekker] directed it, but with better special effects – which now are a no-brainer – that movie could have been a phenomenon….I mean, no matter what age you, c'mon! The Wolfman's got nards!

IGN: Would you have any fear that those villains don't hold the same horror iconography for today's generation?

COHEN: I think you need to reinterpret them. If you do them the way we did it in the mid-80's, you're gonna have a problem. With the power of advanced make-up design, and with the power of CG, and with an attitudinal change, that movie could be remade and be hip and scary and funny. How many movies do you go to that have that combination? You make Dracula much more sexual, much more contemporary. You turn Frankenstein into something other than from The Munsters. You gotta find ways to take those characters and remystify them and give them the power that we expect from monsters.

IGN: Any director's in mind for that?

COHEN: I'd think of directing it myself. I'd love to make something like that, something that involved kids and myths and the fears of children. About why we don't want to look at our closets at night. I've got kids now and it'd be nice to make a movie that they could see!

Almost two years ago Rob Cohen, who produced the original, mentioned that the rights to the film were back at Paramount and that he was working on a deal with the studio to produce a remake.

We haven’t heard anything since then, but now a company is indeed working with Cohen on the remake: Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes.

Deadline reports that Platinum Dunes is on the project, but has few other details. There is no writer as of yet, though producers Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, and Rob Cohen are meeting with writers.When news of the remake cropped up in 2008 Cohen said he wasn’t interested in directing; Deadline now says Cohen wants to direct the film.

Dekker only directed three films: Night of the Creeps, this and RoboCop 3, which means he’s batting .666 (ahem) with respect to creating cult classics. Cohen’s directorial career, on the other hand, boasts many more credits, and some very successful films, but nothing that has the same low-key blend of character and fun to match The Monster Squad.

The original film was based on a pretty simple idea: what if a group of friends had to face down a group of classic Universal monsters come to life? Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man (”Wolf Man’s got nards!”), the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon were the monsters, and they were taken down with a blend of humor and genuine enthusiasm for classic monster movies that had fans clamoring for the movie on DVD.

(The long-overdue release finally hit shelves in October of 2007; a blu-ray disc followed last November.)

Think about a Platinum Dunes-ified version of this film. Could this be a turning point for Dunes? Doubtful. Sure, it’s a timeless concept that could use with some updated special effects and scares, but the charm of the original film is its raw simplicity and subtle sexual humor. While Cohen was obviously involved with the film for a long time, it would be a shame to see him screw up our memory of the fantastic 1987 classic.