After aiding Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Samuel L. Jackson will be trading his leather trench coat out for a white lab coat to take on a lead role in The Blob.
Simon West’s upcoming remake of the 1958 classic will find Jackson playing a biochemistry professor who becomes involved in humankind’s battle against a gelatinous predator that oozes out of the Earth to menace everything in its path.
West, who previously directed The Expendables 2, has described his film as a “monster movie” that’s “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.”
The director also teased that his Blob remake is “more of an invasion movie,” with a terrifying take on the titular creature that’s sure to captivate modern audiences:
This thing’s come from another planet, and also, we don’t know how many there are. It’s fun at the moment – while I’m prepping this other film, The Blob is a bit longer term. I’m having a lot of designing this creature, what its talents are, its attributes, how you can think you’ve defeated it, but you haven’t. It’s fun inventing a creature like that – like the new Alien or the new Predator.
More casting announcements are expected shortly for the project, which is ramping up to shoot this fall.
With Universal plotting a cohesive monster universe that has Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon and Wolfman remakes all existing in the same world as last year’s Dracula Untold, monster movies are definitely coming back into style. And though The Blob is not linking up with any other famous properties, West seems confident that he can deliver a thrilling update of the beloved classic – and my interest is certainly piqued by the director’s gung-ho comparisons to Alien and Predator. If he knows what he’s talking about, one of the sillier movie monsters in cinematic history could be about to surprise all of us.
