Where’s the Gill-Man?
Universal’s repertoire of classic monsters have solidified themselves as cornerstones of not just horror, but popular culture: Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and the Mummy have become household names, appearing in hundreds of films and television shows across a range of genres for nearly a century. And they aren’t going anywhere; the next two years will see the release of Guillermo del Toro’s take on Frankenstein, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s interpretation of The Bride, and The Wolf Man, Leigh Whannell’s long-awaited follow-up to The Invisible Man. But fans have been clamoring for the return of one particular Monster that hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention: the Gill-Man.
Debuting in Creature from the Black Lagoon in 1954, the Gill-Man was Universal’s last creation in their classic line of monsters. The film centers around a team of scientists on a fossil expedition in the Amazon rainforest who discover the half-man, half-amphibian creature. Nicknamed Gill-Man, the sympathetic monster begins to pick the crew off one-by-one, and in the process develops an infatuation with one of the researchers, Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams), that ultimately ends in tragedy.
Since 1954, the Gill-Man has only resurfaced for two sequels: Revenge of the Creature in 1955, and The Creature Walks Among Us in 1956. (He also made a one-time appearance on an episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour alongside Abbott and Costello, which actually aired prior to the first film's release.) While the more popular Monsters seem to be in a new reboot, remake, or reimagining every year, it has been nearly 70 years since the Gill-Man made his last appearance,
So why has it been so long? It’s not for lack of trying, as Universal has been working on and off for the last forty-odd years to get a movie made, with each attempt derailed by a number of insurmountable obstacles. Let’s dive in and break down every failed attempt to remake Creature from the Black Lagoon .
John Landis and Jack Arnold’s Creature(s) from the Black Lagoon
The first attempt to update Creature came in 1982 when producer John Landis approached Jack Arnold, director of the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, and asked if he’d be interested in directing a remake. Arnold tentatively agreed to the job, and prolific genre writer Nigel Kneale was commissioned to write the script.
Kneale later admitted that when he first accepted the assignment, he hadn’t even seen the original film, and was only familiar with the basic elements of the plot. (When he finally got around to seeing it, Kneale found it “not very well written.”) According to Andy Murray’s biography of Kneale, Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale, the script featured two creatures - one described as “destructive” and the other “calm and sensitive” - who become targets of the United States Navy.
Unfortunately, the film’s budget began to balloon, especially once Universal decided to release the film in 3D (like the original). In a 1983 interview with Starburst Magazine, Kneale described his experience working on the remake, and why it ultimately fell apart:
“I worked out a rough screenplay and we were told we could shoot in the spring. I was pleased with the script, there was a lot of humour and the characters were bang up to date. Then came the problem, the horrendous cost of the special effects and costumes, etc. This created a great wrangle over the budget and then Jaws 3D appeared on the horizon as a rival project. Although our budget was to have been considerably less than 20 million dollars, it was temporarily shelved.”
Kneale would move on from the project to pen Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and Creature was shelved.
John Carpenter’s Take on The Creature
It would be another ten years before Universal resumed plans to remake Creature from the Black Lagoon. After Landis and Arnold moved on, Joe Dante and Mike Finnell were briefly attached to the project, but traction really picked up when legendary genre director John Carpenter boarded the project in 1992.
According to Den of Geek, Universal president Tom Pollack offered Carpenter the opportunity to direct whatever he wanted from their expansive catalog. Carpenter, without hesitation, chose ol’ Gill-Man. He was given Kneale’s script, but found it a bit outdated, so Carpenter brought on Bill Phillips, who he worked with on Christine, to assist with a rewrite.
Years after it was shelved, an early draft of the script leaked online. This iteration Black Lagoon centered around Abel Gonzales, a marine biologist in the Amazon to study its diverse aquatic life. Joining him is a small crew of rough-around-the-edges scientists and Cirri Thompson, a Greenpeace worker who serves as this film’s Kay Lawrence. The scientists’ invasive studies catch the attention of the mysterious Creature, who begins to target the unfortunate researchers one-by-one. People are decapitated, arms are ripped from torsos, and throats are slit; in other words, this wasn’t going to be your grandparents’ Creature from the Black Lagoon.
The script also explored the Gill-Man’s backstory, creating a rich mythology around an ancient civilization of amphibious people, of which Gill-Man is the last remaining member.
Special effects maverick Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London) was hired to design the eponymous Creature, but Universal started dragging their feet on the greenlight. In a last ditch effort, Carpenter re-wrote the script, but after months of pre-production, the studio unfortunately passed on the project. (It’s speculated that the failure of Carpenter’s most recent film, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, may have had something to do with it.)
Universal then offered Carpenter another film to remake: Village of the Damned. Carpenter accepted, and once he jumped ship, Creature from the Black Lagoon stalled yet again.
Peter Jackson and Ivan Reitman Tread Water
In 1995, Peter Jackson was busy filming his horror-comedy The Frighteners for Universal. Impressed by the dailies, the studio asked Jackson if he would be interested in directing a remake of one their old horror properties, among them Creature from the Black Lagoon and King Kong. In Jackson’s in own words, he passed on Creature because he “didn’t get too excited about it,” and instead opted to direct King Kong.
Once Jackson turned down the project, Universal entered early talks with director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) to take over the remake. Reitman brought in writers Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris, who worked with him on Twins and Kindergarten Cop, to rewrite Carpenter’s script.
Rick Baker was again approached to do the Creature design, but passed on the project after reading the script. He believed Reitman and the studio were straying too far from the original, saying:
“The last time somebody talked to me about it was when Ivan Reitman had the film, but their thinking was so different from my thinking was that I didn't want anything to do with it. They were making it part-dinosaur, part-every fish in the world. It wasn't the Gill-Man.”
When the remake began to stall, Reitman left the project to direct the Robin Williams-Billy Crystal comedy Father’s Day, and the ill-fated Creature remake once again returned to the black lagoon.
Gill-Man Comes Home
After the massive success of The Mummy, Universal once again tried to remake Creature from the Black Lagoon. In 2001, the studio approached Gary Ross (Pleasantville) to produce the film alongside his father Arthur Ross, who was the writer of the original movie and its sequel, The Creature Walks Among Us.
The first major sign of movement on the project came in 2003, when it was announced that writer Tedi Sarafian (T3: Rise of the Machines) was hired to pen a new script. With the studio preparing for the release of Van Helsing the following year, which featured the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf-man, it seemed as though Universal was hoping to build out an early iteration of the “Dark Universe.” But those plans fell through, as Ross left the project to direct Seabiscuit. Although 2004 came and went without a new Creature movie, Ross stayed on board as a producer.
Breck Eisner Boards the Project
The remake picked up steam again in 2005, when it was announced that director Breck Eisner (Sahara) had agreed to helm. By that point, Gary Ross had rewritten Sarafian’s draft, and Eisner was also planning to take a stab at the script. Vaguely described as a “smart, scientific update” of the original, the remake was aiming for an early-2006 shoot in South and Central America.
And then…nothing. For the next three years, the project continued to stagnate.
In 2008, Collider briefly interviewed Gary Ross about the status of the remake. He claimed he was still attached, but the project hasn’t been greenlit by Universal. Breck Eisner had since left the project, and a new director was yet to be attached. Regardless, Ross was still confident that the long-gestating film would begin production as early as 2009.
Director Carl Erik Rinsch Enters the Lagoon
At the tail-end of 2009, it was announced that Carl Erik Rinsch was next director chosen to helm the Creature from the Black Lagoon remake. Up until that point, Rinsch had worked primarily in commercials. But his debut feature, the Kneanu Reeves-starring 47 Ronin, which Universal was also producing, was gearing up for production the following year. The studio must’ve had a lot of confidence in the first-time director, as they handed him a $175 million budget for 47 Ronin, and the Creature remake, practically sight-unseen.
But that confidence quickly soured during 47 Ronin’s tumultuous production, as Rinsch seemed to buckle under the pressure of the overly-ambitious shoot. When the budget ballooned to $225 million, Universal co-chairman Donna Langley took over editing duties from Rinsch, and the studio completed the film without him or his input.
Unsurprisingly, Rinsch left the Creature remake soon after.
David Kajganich Dives In
The Creature from the Black Lagoon continued to languish in development hell until 2012, when writer David Kajganich (The Invasion, Suspiria) was brought on to write a new script from scratch. Kajganich worked on a few drafts for the studio, with his vision described as a “ride through the kind of 70s-style id-based horror” he grew up loving. But for whatever reason, Universal could not find a director to tackle the project. And yet again, the project stalled.
The Rise (and Fall) of the Dark Universe (2015)
In 2015, Universal officially announced their plans to build an expansive “Dark Universe,” spearheaded by Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan. The studio boldly (and prematurely) unveiled their vision of an MCU-style series of interconnected films based around their classic monsters. The line-up included Tom Cruises’s The Mummy reboot; a Bride of Frankenstein remake directed by Bill Condon, and starring Javier Bardem and Angelina Jolie as the Monster and his Bride; and The Invisible Man, led by Johnny Depp. Universal also announced remakes of Van Helsing, The Wolfman, Frankenstein, and of course, Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Technically speaking, the Dark Universe began in 2014 with the release of Dracula Untold, starring Luke Evans as Vlad the Impaler (a role he would’ve returned for in the announced sequel). The film’s underwhelming reception - both critically and commercially - was a limp start to the Dark Universe, and did not bode well for what was to come.
In the meantime, casting rumors began to swirl: Channing Tatum was reportedly in talks to play Van Helsing, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was Universal’s top pick for the Wolfman. As for Creature from the Black Lagoon, Scarlet Johansson was approached in 2015 to play an unspecified role (though it’s hard to imagine her playing anyone other than Kay Lawrence). Writer Jeff Plinkerton (Fringe) was hired to rewrite Kajganich’s script, with future revisions from Will Beall (Aquaman).
But any and all plans were immediately squashed when The Mummy reboot crashed and burned upon release. (That notorious trailer flub didn’t help matters either). The critical and commercial bomb forced Universal to take a step back and reassess their long-term plans for their iconic catalog of monsters.
Will a Remake Ever Surface?
Leigh Whannel’s 2020 re-imagining of The Invisible Man was the last Universal monster to get an update, and its success led to more plans to create smaller-scaled, director-driven monster movies.
At the time of writing, Guillermo del Toro is prepping his Frankenstein, with Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, and Andrew Garfield set to star. Maggie Gyllenhaal has replaced Bill Condon on Bride of Frankenstein, with Peter Sarsgaard and Christian Bale rumored to star. (Whether this is connected to del Toro’s Frankenstein is unclear, but both films are being produced by Netflix, so it certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibility.) Ryan Gosling is set to lead a long-delayed Wolfman reboot, helmed by frequent collaborator Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Stars). And Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) is set to direct a “sci-fi western” reimagining of Dracula.
So where does this leave Creature from the Black Lagoon? It’s hard to say. Right now, there are no stars, writers, or directors attached to the property. In 2021, Robert Rodriguez and Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead) expressed their interest in reviving the Gill-Man, but that was less of an announcement, and more just two fans expressing their desire to remake the “quintessential Universal Monster movie.”
But what if we already got a Creature from the Black Lagoon remake, and we just didn’t realize it? (Or maybe you did - it’s pretty obvious).
In 2002, Guillermo del Toro went to Universal and passionately pitched his own idea for a Creature from the Black Lagoon film. Ever since he saw the original at the age of seven, del Toro has dreamed of making his own version of the classic film. He wanted to tell the story from the perspective of the Gill-Man, and focus on the transgressive relationship that forms between the Creature and Kay Lawrence, ending with the two characters falling in love.
At the time, Universal and Gary Ross didn’t recognize del Toro’s vision, and ultimately passed on his take. But del Toro didn’t give up; instead, he recontextualized the pitch and created his own love story between an amphibian man and a lonely woman: The Shape of Water.
So even if we never get a proper remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon, we’ll always have del Toro’s beautiful (if “unofficial”) re-imagining.
This article was originally published on MovieWeb.com in Oct. 2023.
