The first one introduced Steve McQueen to the moviegoing world. The second one starred Kevin Dillon and had a screenplay by Frank Darabont. And we will soon be able to beware The Blob again when Robert Cummings, aka Rob Zombie, gets to work next year.
Zombie's nightmare finding distribution for House of 1000 Corpses seems to be long over, and he's now firmly ensconced with creative control at Dimension, who have been trying to get a Blob up and running for a while.
Variety reports that Zombie is dispensing with all notions of big red blobbiness, should anyone be concerned that this idea seems ridiculous. "That's the first thing I want to change," he says. "That gigantic Jello-looking thing might have been scary to audiences in the 1950s, but people would laugh now."
So after Halloween and its sequel, why another remake? "I'd been looking to break out of the horror genre, and this really is a science fiction movie about a thing from outer space. I intend to make it scary, and the great thing is I have the freedom once again to take it in any crazy direction I want to."
The budget is set at around $30m (similar to District 9 and Cloverfield) and filming is planned for next spring. Rob has a new album out in November and plans to write the Blob script while he's on his winter tour. It'll give him something to do on the bus.
Zombie-related trivia: Bill Moseley, who played Otis Firefly in House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, and Z-Man in Halloween, played "Soldier no. 2" in the 1988 Blob remake.
Halloween 2 is out in the US today, but doesn't seem to have a UK release date yet.