Jeff Katz and AIP Remaking Horror Classics

Steve Barton |

May 6, 2013

Source Name:

Deadline

Source Url:

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/aip-remake-plan-in-place-get-ready-for-reboots-of-girls-in-prison-she-creature-and-brain-eaters/

Post Thumb:

/may13/war-of-the-colossal-beast-s.jpg

Jeff Katz and AIP Remaking Horror Classics Viking Women & The Sea Serpent, The Brain Eaters, She-Creature, Teenage Caveman, The Undead, War of the Colossal Beast, and The Day the World Ended. These are a few of my favorite things, and they’re now getting remade and more!

According to Deadline, Jeff Katz, Lou Arkoff, and Hal Sadoff plan to remake 10 titles in the Arkoff/Nicholson library of American International Pictures-produced 1950’s classics. Usually the mere idea of remakes sends shivers of woe down our spines, but given the talent involved and the love that I know they have for these projects, we couldn’t be happier.

Getting the redux treatment are the following 1950’s drive-in classics: Girls in Prison, Viking Women & The Sea Serpent, The Brain Eaters, She-Creature, Teenage Caveman, Runaway Daughters, The Undead, Cool & The Crazy, The Day the World Ended, and my personal favorite, The War of the Colossal Beast. Please…. please… PLEASE… keep the same make-up design for that one!

AIP was founded in 1954 by Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson and churned out 500 low-budget indies for teens that included the Beach Party series with Frankie Avalon and the late Annette Funicello as well as the early films of director Roger Corman. In 1979 AIP merged with Filmways, which later was folded into Orion Pictures. Currently the rest of the library is owned by MGM, Orion’s successor. Arkoff, son of Samuel, had previously produced remakes of AIP titles for Showtime’s “Rebel Highway” series in the 1990′s.

“My filmmaking heroes growing up were men like Arkoff, Castle, Corman, and Shaye,” Katz explained. “This series of movies is really meant as a tip of the hat to that sort of attitude. It’s not every day you get the opportunity to create a brand new universe out of old school titles, and I feel incredibly fortunate and honored to get to play in the AIP sandbox.”