Director Craig Gillespie Might Helm the Fright Night Remake

Yes, another remake, but this one actually has some potential. The LA Times is reporting that Lars and the Real Girl director Craig Gillespie may have landed the job of directing DreamWorks’ new Fright Night remake. This DreamWorks is the one run by Steven Spielberg, not Jeffrey Katzenberg. Gillespie is only “in negotiations” at the moment, but is the one they’re going with after narrowing it down to three directors (the other two were not identified). Gillespie doesn’t have any horror experience yet, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a good choice. I was hoping Mike Dougherty would’ve gotten the job, but that was a bit of a pipe dream.

In addition to Lars and the Real Girl, Gillespie directed the Billy Bob Thornton comedy Mr. Woodcock, which was a pretty big flop. He’s also been directing episodes of Showtime’s “United States of Tara”, which may be how he ended up inside the DreamWorks family. Gillespie will be working from a script written by Marti Noxon, a writer/producer on AMC’s “Mad Men” and writer on the 90’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” show, which is important considering Fright Night involves vampires. In the original 1985 film, which was written and directed by Tom Holland, William Ragsdale played a teenager who discovers his neighbors are vampires, but no one believes him. The remake will keep the comedy-horror tone while modernizing the FX.

This isn’t a done deal yet for Gillespie, and the guys who run the 24 Frames blog have been jumping the gun with some early news recently, so you never know. I don’t really have much to say about this, I just hope that Gillespie doesn’t make this too cheesy. I’m worried that this will be a PG-13 horror movie version of “Buffy” mixed with Disturbia, which I don’t really want to see, but others probably do. We’ll keep you updated on DreamWorks’ plans with this remake, so stay tuned anyway. Do you think Gillespie is a good choice?

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