Out on the publicity trail for his Jason Statham thriller Wild Card, director Simon West has been fielding questions about his next project, a remake of the '50s horror **The Blob. Explaining his approach, and the angles that most attracted him, he promises that it will be "on a much bigger canvas than the originals".
The first Blob introduced Steve McQueen to the moviegoing world. Larry Hagman directed sequel Beware! The Blob in the '70s. The surprisingly excellent '80s remake starred Kevin Dillon and had a screenplay by Frank Darabont. The latest version was previously growing under the Weinsteins' roof at Dimension (Rob Zombie flirted with it for a while), but is now taking shape at Goldcrest.
The original Blob came from space, while the '80s version was a Cold War experiment gone wrong. The latest incarnation, West confirms, will be "more sci-fi" again.
"[The previous films] were much more small, niche genre horror movies," he says. "This Blob will be more sophisticated, more along the lines of Alien and Predator and things like that: much more science-based, the way Jurassic Park made you believe you could bring back dinosaurs with a bit of DNA from a mosquito. This will be a much more sophisticated creature, with more explanation of where it comes from. It's a monster movie rather than a horror in that sense."
It will also, West continues, be "more of an invasion movie. This thing's come from another planet, and we don't know how many there are. I'm having a lot of fun designing this creature, what its talents are, its attributes, how you can think you've defeated it, but you haven't..."
As to when we'll see it, West says the project is "a bit longer term" and that he's playing around with the concepts and designs while prepping his immediate next film. That would be the British Special Forces thriller **Stratton, starring (and produced by) Henry Cavill and based on the novel by Duncan Falconer.
Shooting on Stratton begins shortly, and Wild Card is out on March 20.