Joe Dante To Reboot One Of Jack Nicholson's Early Films

By Andrew Sanford | Film | March 18, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | Film | March 18, 2024 |

To say that Roger Corman is a prolific filmmaker would be an understatement. His career spans decades. His influence can be felt for just as long. As a producer, he helped launch the careers of some of the most talented directors to ever get behind a camera. Now, Corman is reuniting with one of those directors to reboot one of his most influential films.

Joe Dante has an equally impressive career. The director made mainstream B-movies (and I mean that as a compliment), resulting in a cultural footprint impossible to ignore. Films like The Howling and Gremlins would influence scores of films and television shows. The editor and director has also made his mark in television directing. His newest project will see him return to film for the first time since 2018’s Nightmare Cinema.

Dante is teaming up with Cormon on a reboot of Cormon’s 1960 film The Little Shop Of Horrors. Dante will direct the reboot, currently titled The Little Shop of Halloween Horrors, and it will be written by Gremlins 2: The New Batch scribe Charles S. Haas. The original film starred Jonathan Haze and Jackie Joseph and featured one of the earliest onscreen appearances of Jack Nicholson.

This is not the first time The Little Shop of Horrors has been reimagined. The film was turned into an off-broadway musical in the early ’80s, which was itself turned into a movie directed by Frank Oz, which was then turned into a short-lived animated series in 1991. Deadline reports that the new film is intended to be a reimagining, which will kickstart a new franchise.

Details about the film are still scarce. We don’t even know if it will contain a giant, flesh-eating plant. Still, Joe Dante being attached gives me an immense amount of hope. This is the kind of reboot that could surprise us all.