The master of remakes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (despite never directing one of his own), Rob Zombie is bringing his dusty touch to 1313 Mockingbird Lane. Announcing his latest film on Instagram earlier today, Zombie says his next movie will be a reboot of the 60s horror-infused sitcom The Munsters.
“Attention Boils and Ghouls!” Zombie wrote on Instagram. “The rumors are true! My next film project will be the one I’ve been chasing for 20 years! The Munsters! Stay tuned for exciting details as things progress!”
Like most people who liked seeing Frankenstein on TV every week, Zombie is a huge fan of The Munsters. In addition to “chasing” this movie for 20 years, Howard Stern told listeners in 2010 that Zombie and Stern sat around watching The Munsters during a vacation. Stern recalled Zombie saying that he saw each episode at least “17 times.” Maybe he’s the one to answer that question that’s been rattling around in our (and Apu’s) head for decades: If Eddie’s mother is a vampire and his dad is a Frankenstein, why is he a werewolf?
Zombie’s been laying low for the last few years, at least when it comes to his movie career. Following the release and subsequent box office returns of Halloween II, Zombie dug his heels into his original concepts, including the late Devil’s Rejects sequel 3 From Hell. All failed to make much of a dent, with critics panning and audiences ignoring (or, more likely, not knowing they existed—his last film to open in more than 360 theaters was Halloween II).
The former White Zombie frontman isn’t the first to take a stab at rebooting America’s second family of monsters (sorry, the Addams Family are still number one—you can complain in the comments). Between 1980 and 2012, several Munster sequels, reboots, and remakes aired, and they all have incredible casts. The original family, including Fred Gwynne, Al Lewis, and Yvonne De Carlo, donned the makeup for 1981’s The Munsters’ Revenge. Years later, character actor extraordinaire John Schuck popped a couple of bolts his neck to play Herman Munster against Lee Merriweather’s Lily for The Munsters Today. The last reboot attempt came about in 2012, with Hannibal mastermind Bryan Fuller’s Mockingbird Lane. Originally planned as a TV series, the pilot aired as a made-for-TV movie starring, get this, Jerry O’Connell as Herman and Eddie Izzard as Grandpa (not bad!).
Neither Zombie nor the studio announced any other details. Still, we feel that it’s fair to assume that Zombie’s wife Sherri Moon will play either Lily or Marylin (or, fuck it, why not both?). Regardless, for the love of God, keep Andy Serkis away from the Munsters’ pet dragon Spot.
62 Comments
I never liked Grampa Munster.For the longest time, I didn’t even know he was supposed to be a vampire.
He’s supposed to be a senator for Texas.
I used to have a regional manager who we called Eddie because his hair was spot-on Eddie Munster.I got kicked out of a couple of meetings for it (he was a real dick). Good times.
I know that guy. I saw him once drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s. His hair was a little disheveled.
I thought he was the best thing about the show other than the dragon and the car.
He had his own line of public domain VHS tapes in the 80s –
Do they call him “Grandpa Munster” in the series? Because he’s Lily’s father, and her maiden name is Dracula. Munster is Herman’s last name.
Meh. Don’t like him. See what we care. =)
I’m down. Halloween 2 and Lords of Salem are great. It’ll be interesting to see how he does with something more kid friendly.
no
nailed it
Hi, can you guys fix the thing where I click a notification to see a particular comment and just get brought to the article instead? The comment sections are even more broken than usual *insert rimshot*. Please forward this to whoever’s at Kinja HQ or G/O Media’s web guy is, tia.
I love it when you click (Load More Comments) or refresh the page and it takes you to a different article entirely.
Or the random half a sentence from the article above the photo/below the title.
Yeah its fucked up. Even when I go and try to look for comments that it says have a response, half the time they are not there.
It’s funny how much of a hold stuff from our childhood has on us. Rob Zombie’s been chasing the Munsters for 20 years (supposedly) and probably had to negotiate and renegotiate rights with who knows how many heirs of whoever or production companies who bought out other production companies and paid out who knows how much just to use the name, all because he wished he could make a Munsters show when he was a 10 year old. Meanwhile absolutely nobody is asking for this and his Munsters will probably be worse than if he just wrote an entirely new show about a family of monsters.
I am looking forward to Gary Busey as Grandpa, possibly referring to the children as little chicken shit freakazoids don’t know wolfsbane from a rotten turd.
I suspect his take will be a little darker, like they’ll actually be monsters and try to kill people, but be really bad at it.
If it’s going to be bad, it should go all out. For a start, the theme song should be Rob Zombie’s take on that “Uma Thurman” song (a song I always sing along to against my will).
I’ve never understood why they chose the Munsters melody for that song. Did they confuse it with “Miserlou”?
I’m guessing they failed to clear the rights to “Misirlou” so they went with the first surf-guitar song they could think of. Also it’s well within the realm of possibility that the guys from Fallout Boy can’t tell the difference between the Munsters song and the Pulp Fiction song, and they used whichever one the guitar guy knew.
Can Rob Zombie write something entirely new? Every one of his movies has made me wish I was watching the superior source material instead.
“probably had to negotiate and renegotiate rights with who knows how many heirs of whoever or production companies”Why would he have to do any of that? The latest reboot was less than a decade ago, I’m sure rights are pretty clear.
IIRC, Zombie had THE Munster’s stuffed polar bear in his house (thanks, MTV CRIBS!)
Rob Zombie’s entire career is based off of other people’s neglected IP. “White Zombie” was an old movie title.He’s done pretty well for himself, considering, no?
“If Eddie’s mother is a vampire and his dad is a Frankenstein, why is he a werewolf?”Science! Duh! Everybody knows that when vampire & Frankenstein DNA are combined, there is a 25% probability the offspring will be a werewolf.
Do they not even teach the basics of Genetics in high-school biology classes these days?
Monster genealogy is quite simple.
Now THAT’S what I’m talking about…cold, hard SCIENCE!Sheesh, kids today don’t know nuthin’…
Well, either that or Lily has some ‘splaining to do. I hope she can come up with a very convincing excuse of why her son has the WereMilkManWolf’s eyes…
A Frankenstein is made up of pieces from multiple donors, so it’s entirely possible that Herman’s loins came from a werewolf who died in its human form or reverted to human form upon death.It’s also possible that some of his blood came from a werewolf and the lycanthropy is now present throughout his body (although latent due to something in the Frankensteining process).
So Herman has werewolf balls, got it
Nards. Werewolves have nards. If The Monster Squad taught us nothing else, it’s that Wolfman’s got nards.
this looks like something you stole off of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Twitter feed LOL
Frankensteins are made of human body parts. It’s not a race. Genetically Herman is still human.Vampires are not born as such. Lily was a human who got bitten by her dad (don’t ask.) Eddie was born human. He’s a werewolf because he has terrible parents and got bitten by the neighbor’s pit bull.
I remember the title Mockingbird Lane but had no idea it was a Munsters thing. Huh.
Yeah, this is going to be a train wreck.
I’m not sure the world needs “Torture-porn Munsters”.
But don’t you want to see Rob Zombie’s wife parading around in goth dresses?
This is indeed a bad idea, but will it be, on some ironic level, a watchable one?
I remember that 2012 reboot being reasonably good and was surprised it didn’t make it to a full series.The full pilot seems to be available online.
“If Eddie’s mother is a vampire and his dad is a Frankenstein, why is he a werewolf?”
I dunno. Because the mailman was a werewolf?
Given modern trends in these types of projects, you bet your ass they’re going to dive in to why he’s a werewolf. Like, it’s going to get a full explanation with some kind of stupid twist.
There is a more than 100% chance that his wife will be cast as Lily Munster.Congrats to Robert Zombie for finally getting the chance to completely fuck up his favorite childhood franchise, though. We all dream of that kinda opportunity.
Like, he isn’t the only director who does that (see Paul Anderson/Milla Jovovich) but he’s the only one who seems to really want us to see how hot and sexy he thinks she is.It’s weird. It’s like they’ve got an exhibitionist fetish and managed to trick Hollywood in to bankrolling it.
The only question is whether Eddie or Marilyn will wear the KISS T-Shirt and have Charles Manson posters in their bedroom, or whether both will, or if these will be split between the two of them.
Marylin will still be a school girl. But they’ll play up the Catholic school girl Lolita angle and also she’ll have a bondage dungeon or some shit.
Always preferred The Munsters to The Addams Family as a kid, it always seemed strange to me that so many more things were made out of the latter franchise.
And this will fail miserably, like the Jerry O’Connell pilot did. Because none of these weirdos grasp that the Munsters (like the Addams) were fundamentally nice people. That was the joke! Instead, the Munsters pilot had Grandpa enslave nice neighbors with blood cookies.
MONSTER PARTIES ARE NO JOKE!
According to the comments, this was the original pitch for a reboot, or rather a sequel, back in 1984.
(blocked: music video for “What Even Happened To Eddie”)I remember hearing it on Doctor Demento and thinking it was a pretty sad grasp at continued fame.
The show was awful, but good-intentioned.Rob Zombie is going to make The Munsters look like one of his movies. Grimy hobo-molesting rednecks being ugly while his bimbo wife struts around screeching like a banshee and shaking her saggy National Geographic titties like grandma shaking out a rug.ANYBODY would be better for this project than Rob Zombie. A random bag lady snatched off the street and dropped into a directors chair with a script written in crayon by the deranged results of Donald Trump copulating with a platypus would create a better movie than Rob Zombie.
Thanks. I hate it.
“If Eddie’s mother is a vampire and his dad is a Frankenstein, why is he a werewolf?”
Herman is Frankenstein’s monster, so his dick was from a werewolf.There. Problem solved. Where’s my multi-million dollar Hollywood contract.
I’m sure he’s a swell guy, and I can’t speak much on his music, but as a Director Rob Zombie lives down to every hysterical thought your ultra-reactionary grandmother who hadn’t left the house since 1948 had when she heard you liked heavy metal and/or horror movies.
The Addams Family movies > The Munsters tv > The Addams Family tv
It’s gotta be killing him that he can’t cast Sid Haig as the lead. Because I’d actually watch the hell out of it.
The central problem with rebooting the Munsters, which is decidedly more blue collar than the Addams family (I mean, Herman has a job and financial woes whereas Gomez is old money), is that nonetheless they live in a mansion because no other domiciles are spooky. But in 2021 if we’re trying to do a “blue collar family of monsters and their struggles” the whole “owns a house huge enough to be spooky” thing is a major issue, isn’t it?
I’ve got some real hopes for this one.While it will undoubtedly be a ridiculous train wreck, The Munsters WORK as a ridiculous train wreck. It’s like The Monster Club. If it was any better, it would have sucked. Also, I’ve been hoping for years for a Rob Zombie remake of The Monster Club for exactly that reason.
This is gonna be shit.
WTF do you have against Serkis?Do you figure he’s just been overused?