News > Interview with Gary Ross on 'Creature from the Black Lagoon'

Creature from The Black Lagoon interview with Gary Ross during a press junket of The Tale of Despereaux.  Guys over at Latino Review had the exclusive interview and here it is:

You're working Creature From The Black Lagoon?

Ross: Ya, I'm producing. And I wrote a script.

And how's that going?

Ross: It's going great. We're actually moving forward.

What's the tone of the film going to be?

Ross: it's not campy. It's not like the original, it's not, my Dad wrote the original, so it's not a reference to what the original is. We take it sort of seriously. We found some scientific under pinnings for it, which my Dad actually felt in the original. In fact, he based it on a lung fish that was found around that time. So a lot of that was his. And kind of the conflict between science and uh…

Will the tone be a throwback to some of the older…?

Ross: Actually, no. We're going to treat it with a certain amount of dignity. We're not approaching this a in a retro campy kind of way. it's set in present day. There are reasonable scientific under pinnings. It should really be an interesting journey into the jungle both for the characters and for the audience.

So the story isn't going to draw on the originals or the sequels?

Ross: Oh, absolutely. Ya, my Dad's favorite was The Creature Walks Among us. One which he also wrote. And so, my Dad actually just died two weeks ago so…

Wow. So sorry to hear that.

Ross: Thank you.

So have you looked at who you want for the project? I know Rob Zombie has talked about that would be the one movie he would love to do.

Ross: Well, I can't really talk about it. We've talked to some directors.

Is it going to be a CGI creature? Do you guys have any idea how you would do that or…?

Ross: Well, those are always decisions that are going to be made during prep. The movie is not greenlit. Let me say that. We hope to be making it sometime next year, so I don't want to send the wrong impression. I think it's going to be a very interesting movie. A lot of the decisions of the hybrid of CG versus practical will be made by the director down the line.

It is gonna go for scares though?

Ross: Oh sure. We're not gonna wink at the audience and make it silly in any sort of way, we're gonna take it seriously.