Mike Mitchell has signed on to direct Warner Bros.’ supernatural comedy, Monster Squad, which is not – repeat, not – a remake of the cult classic 1987 supernatural comedy, The Monster Squad. Clear? Clear.
That Monster Squad, of course, was a fun flick pitting a group of kids against a conglomerate of classic movie monsters, including Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
This Monster Squad, in fact, has been gestating at Warners since 2000, when it was first picked up as a spec script called Nightcrawlers, written by Brian Lynch. Since then, it’s been in development hell, going through a phalanx of writers, before landing on the keyboard of Brad Copeland, who wrote the draft that Warners and Mitchell are going ahead with.
Sadly, Warners are keeping mum about the story of this new Monster Squad, but we do know that it’s a big-budget, high-concept supernatural comedy, one of the many currently swirling around Hollywood.
Mitchell is an interesting choice for director – an animation guy by trade, he’s just finishing up work on Shrek Forever After, but before that he had directed three live-action comedies, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Surviving Christmas, and Sky High. That’s a run that virtually defines ‘patchy’, but Mitchell is a sparky, ultra-geeky chap and if he can transplant those sensibilities to Monster Squad, it might be worth keeping an eye on.
Warners is hoping to shoot the movie towards the tail-end of next year.