You may not be aware of this, but when he finds spare time, ad-man Kevin Bacon maintains a steady side-career as an actor. Good for him. Advertising is like waitering for film stars – no one could sustain a decent standard of living on it, not even celebrities. And yes, this has all been very, very serious.
The real reason I’m here discussing the work of the actor-man Kevin Bacon though lies in a cult 90s mon-com (monster comedy? Might catch on) he starred in. Tremors may never have shaken the box office, grossing just $16.6 million against an $11 million budget. But that didn’t prevent it from creating a micro-franchise of its own – spawning 5 direct-to-video sequels (they still count) and a short-lived TV series. Recently, Bacon oversaw a new pilot, with the intention of developing a brand new Tremors show.
Speaking with Variety, the star of Apollo 13 and many, many EE commercials delineated the ideas he had for the as-yet unmade Tremors reboot, saying:
“I have a very specific thing that happened, which was I wanted to reboot Tremors. And worked very hard on it and did a fantastic pilot with Blumhouse,” Bacon shared with Variety. “Andrew Miller was the writer of it. We shot the pilot. I thought it was cool and SYFY decided not to go forward with it. I liked that character because it was the only character I really looked at and said, ‘I wanna know where he is 25 years later.’ We left him at a certain point, he had this extraordinary thing with these worms, underground worms. He’s not a smart man, kind of a loser, but he was able to fight these worms. Now let’s see what happened to him 25 years down the line.”
Asked about the prospect of another network picking up the project, Bacon was sanguine, stating:
“I don’t know the answer to that. I feel like we’ve explored the options. But, listen, you never know. Stranger things have happened.”
It’s not entirely bad news for Tremorists. For fans of the film series, a sixth direct-to-video sequel is currently in production, due to be released in 2020 (though not starring Kevin Bacon). Those hoping his floated TV show finds its way to screens in the near future will be more disappointed, though, as those prospects don’t sound overly promising at the moment. What they do have on their side, however, is Bacon’s clear and undeniable passion for the franchise; that Tremors retains such love from a high-profile industry figure ought to keep its flame burning for the foreseeable future, right?