Here’s a fun bit of news, via the folks at Deadline: the filmmaking collective known as Radio Silence (that is: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella) have lined up their next project, an as-yet-unannounced and apparently secretive project for Universal that’s being described as “an Untitled Monster Thriller.”
Deadline has this to say about the project, which will be co-directed by Bettinelli-Olpin & Gillett and produced by Villella (alongside Project X’s William Sherak, Paul Neinstein and James Vanderbilt), from a screenplay by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick:
“In the vein of the Studio’s recent hits like The Invisible Man and Renfield, this untitled monster thriller provides a unique take on legendary monster lore and will represent a fresh, new direction for how to celebrate these classic characters. Universal Monster films are rooted in the horror genre, with no restrictions on budget, rating or genre. They are not part of a shared interconnected universe, which allows each film to stand on its own.”
Now this is intriguing. Not just an “Untitled Monster Thriller” for Universal, but one which sounds like it’ll be tackling multiple known characters from the studio’s library of Universal Monsters films. That could mean just about anything, obviously, but the sheer number of possibilities are exciting, right? Perhaps it’ll be a versus film. Maybe it’ll be some kinda mash-up, a la The Monster Squad. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what shakes out!
Some might be disappointed to learn that Radio Silence are stepping away from the Scream franchise after two very good entries in that series, which is understandable. They’ve been crushing it! But if I might editorialize for a moment: this team is clearly very, very talented at what they do, and I’m excited to see them tackling something entirely different (bonus: AND IT WILL HAVE MONSTERS IN IT). The Scream franchise will be just fine … and besides, now we get to speculate on who might be tackling Scream VII. That’s a win-win, folks.
Nothing further to report on Radio Silence’s Untitled Monster Thriller, but rest assured we’ll be keeping our ears close to the ground for updates, and will have those in front of you just as soon as they land on our radar. Stay tuned!
