Just a few short days ago, we included the 1950s mutated creature feature Them! in our 31 Days Of Horror countdown. As if by magic, news has emerged of the latest state of play with the proposed remake of this genre classic.
Following his directorial debut with Marvel’s well-received Werewolf by Night, Michael Giacchino set his sights on the monster movie for a remake. The man-eating giant ant movie was set up at Warner Bros. Pictures.
In the Gordon Douglas helmed original, ants in the New Mexico desert have grown to a mammoth size after being irradiated by the blasts from nuclear tests. When queen ants and some of the next head to Los Angeles, a national emergency is declared and a final battle is prepared for.
In a Q&A with Collider, Giacchino gave an update:
“So, anyway, the development we’re in right now, we’re about to find our writer. We were about to make the deal, and then the writer’s strike happened. So then that went on pause, and we waited for 140-whatever days it was. So now we’re just starting up again.”
So how do you make what seems like a hokey premise – giant irradiated ants – relevant as we move towards the second half of the 2020s?
“‘Them!’ was a film in the 1950s about giant ants. It was sort of discussing the oncoming nuclear age that we found ourselves in and were woefully unprepared for as human beings, and so I thought there’s so much going on in the world – that was clearly a lesson that we didn’t learn as humans – and it feels like it’s a story that could be told again today with a lot of the s— that’s going on in the world. I love that movie dearly. It’s a very special film.”
Giant irradiated creatures are nothing new in entertainment these days. It will be interesting to see if Giacchino can find a new spin with Them!
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