There has been serious talk of a Creature from the Black Lagoon remake for a little while now, and although the project was put on hold thanks to the writers' strike, it is now officially back on track according to a scoop at ShockTillYouDrop.com. Director Breck Eisner even mentioned the specific designer and effects house that is working on the brand new Gill Man.It will be Spectral Motion, the company which did creature/make-up effects for films such as Hellboy, Fantastic Four and X-Men: The Last Stand that will be bringing us the new Creature. In fact, Eisner says they've already built their first maquette, based on a design created by Mark McCreery, whose previous body of work includes designing the Penguin for Batman Returns, Davey Jones for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Ghost Rider, Ang Lee's Hulk, and the reimagined Universal monsters for Van Helsing.
Eisner reports that the authentic Amazon locations have already been scouted, he himself is polishing up the screenplay, and McCreery's design is "very faithful to the original, but updated." The director is striving to keep the remake tonally similar to the original as well, while also retooling it to scare today's audiences as much as it scared them in 1954. It's expected to be a 2009 summer flick, so expect there to be a little more action as well, although the picture will remain a horror movie, and will not be transformed into a full-tilt action vehicle the way The Mummy was a decade ago.
I can remember a new Creature from the Black Lagoon being in the works for at least 20 years now--in fact, I believe John Carpenter was originally attached to it. Much like the Wolf Man, this is a Universal reboot I'm keeping my eye on.