After dabbling in TV for much of the last decade, Gremlins and The Howling director Joe Dante is set to return to feature filmmaking with his first project since 2014’s Burying the Ex. Dante, who kicked off his career in the late 1970s with the Roger Corman-backed Hollywood Boulevard and Piranha, will now reunite with the legendary filmmaker for a reboot of Little Shop of Horrors.
Initially directed by Corman in 1960 as a micro-budget feature (starring a young Jack Nicholson!), the story was then re-popularized in the 1980s with Frank Oz’s take, itself based on Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman’s Off-Broadway play. This new version is titled Little Shop of Halloween Horrors, Deadline reports. Corman will produce Dante’s reboot, which is described as a hopeful franchise-starter (continuer?), but there are no other specific details outside of the obvious Halloween theme of the title.
The original followed the “story of a florist who discovered a strange plant with a craving for human flesh. As the plant grows, Seymour must feed it victims to keep it satisfied, leading to a series of darkly comedic and increasingly twisted events.”
As we await more details, check out Dante discuss the original below.