Channing Tatum is re-teaming with his 21 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller for a monster movie in the works at Universal. The film is based on a story and treatment from Reid Carolin, who also has history with Tatum, as he was a producer on Magic Mike. Wes Tooke (Midway) is penning the script.
The film will reportedly be a modern day, tongue in cheek thriller heavily inspired by Universal’s selection of classic horror movies, which includes Dracula, The Wolf Man, and Frankenstein. So, just like Lord and Miller took an old TV show in the form of 21 Jump Street and updated it into a modern day, tongue in cheek comedy, they’ll be doing something very similar here.
It’s a good plan. And it’s not like Universal hasn’t previously noticed how these monster movies can effectively be parodied; in the 40s and 50s they produced a bunch of films where comedy duo Abbott and Costello interacted with the monsters, to big laughs and even bigger box office numbers.
The studio has already put a bunch of monster-related projects into production after the success of The Invisible Man earlier this year. They already snagged director of that film, Leigh Whannell, to direct a Wolf Man remake starring Ryan Gosling, while Karyn Kusama (The Invitation, Destroyer) is helming a new Dracula movie.
Universal have ditched the previous Dark Universe model, which was designed to be an MCU-esque interconnected universe, except with monsters. That fell flat on its face after The Mummy, and they’ve since shifted to stand alone monster movies with new, contemporary settings and fresh directors with unique visions. Thus far, it’s worked out far better.
This should be a great playground for Lord and Miller to do their thing, and adds to Universal’s impressive repertoire of filmmakers they’ve brought onto their monster projects. Lord and Miller will have to work hard to find time in their schedule for the film though, as they’ve got a number of projects in the works.
They include murder mystery series The Afterparty at Apple, a Clone High reboot at MTV with Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence, and an astronaut movie the duo are directing set to star Ryan Gosling. As for Tatum, he’s working on his directorial debut Dog, which he will also star in.
#Peace.Love.LordxMiller
