News > Mel Brooks to Produce Horror-Film "Pizzaman"

Apparently there's been some gossip out there that has eluded me suggesting that Mel Brooks, 81, is packing up his shop at Brooksfilms, but the man himself says otherwise. He told The Hollywood Reporter, "I'm not quitting. Brooksfilms is still here and will be going on for a while. I'm not at all slowing down, and nobody has told me to stop." In fact, he has a film coming up called "The Pizzaman," though it's not what you might expect from the octogenarian comedian.

"Pizzaman" is a straight horror film developed by Brooks along with writers Ruby De Luca ("Silent Movie") and Steve Haberman ("Life Stinks"). Plot details have not been released, but the three men are still rewriting the film before shopping it around to studios.

Some might recall that Brooksfilms was the production company behind David Cronenberg's "The Fly," as well as its less popular sequel. Brooks started the company in 1980 to produce David Lynch's "The Elephant Man." Brooks has said that he didn't want to label "Elephant Man" "A Mel Brooks Film" as it might lead audiences to mistake the psychological drama for a comedy.

-David Morgan