Following a very successful reception to his directorial debut with the Marvel “Werewolf by Night” special in October, Oscar winning composer Michael Giacchino is now moving up to theatrical features.
Deadline reports that the famed “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Star Trek” and “The Incredibles” composer will make his big screen directing debut with a reboot of 1954’s man-eating giant ant creature feature “Them!” at Warner Bros. Pictures.
Gordon Douglas helmed the original in which a nest of ants in the New Mexico desert has grown gigantic after being irradiated by nuclear test blasts. It becomes a national threat when two young queen ants and their consorts escape to set-up new nests, and ends with a showdown in the Los Angeles sewer system.
The film was one of the first of the ‘nuclear monster’ features and first ‘big bug’ features that came out in the 1950s and led to copycats including “Tarantula” and the original “The Fly”. Creatures features never really went away after that, leading to all manner of films about spiders (“Arachnophobia,” “Kingdom of the Spiders,” “Eight-Legged Freaks”), ants (“Empire of the Ants”) and other insects.
Talking about the theme, Giacchino says the current version of “Them!” is about immigration as filtered through the lens of an “insane science fiction monster movie”. Heis currently meeting with writers with the aim of getting into production quite soon.
He also also plans to score “Them!” and will have his filmmaker brother, Anthony Giacchino, involved in the production.
Source: Deadline
