Breck Eisner Drops Out of the 'Black Lagoon' Remake

Director Breck Eisner (Sahara) is no longer remaking The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and I for one am pretty happy about that. Oh, they're still remaking the movie, which still makes me hesitant, but Universal is just parting ways with Eisner. Frankly, outside of this father being Michael Eisner, I can't imagine why Breck would be linked to such a controversial remake in the first place. Don't you think you'd want to save a remake of one of the clasic monster movies for a director with an track record? Somebody you might immediately think could pull this off? Bloody Disgusting says the studio is actively looking for a new director after parting ways with Eisner the junior, although I don't think the search needs to go much further than the guy who's writing the script. Gary Ross doesn't work much, but when he does, it's usually Dave, Pleasantville, Big, or Seabiscuit. His father wrote the original Creature script, and even though Ross' movies are decidedly more sentimental than this project, he's certainly an assured filmmaker and a more accomplished one than Eisner. Supposing Ross doesn't want to direct, and there's no indication that he does, it seems like the sort of thing Gore Verbinski could do fairly well. I think he's too concerned with Bioshock at the moment, though. I'd trust Frank Darabont, even though The Mist might have misfired. But if Universal really wanted a big name director for this, you'd think that would have been the way to go before hiring Eisner. So maybe da U is less concerned with how the movie turns out than raising awareness for its new theme park musical based on the original film.