Rob Zombie Remaking 'The Blob' Without The Blob

Perhaps I'm a bit testy because his movies have gotten so bad that I always have to see them at midnight on opening day, but would studios please stop letting Rob Zombie write scripts? It's been downhill ever since House of 1,000 Corpses, even though as a director, he had shown steady improvement until Halloween II, which is pretty empty. I ask the studios this because Zombie has just cashed in to write, direct, and produce a remake of The Blob, one of the quintessential American monster movies of the 1950s and 60s. The original, released in 1958, introduced the world to Steve McQueen. There has been a remake before now, and it was dreadful, and I can't believe Zombie has the creative chops as a writer to give us anything better. I mean, the proof is in the (blood) pudding, right? "My intention is not to have a big red blobby thing -- that's the first thing I want to change," Zombie tells Variety. "That gigantic Jello-looking thing might have been scary to audiences in the 1950s, but people would laugh now." He's right about that, which, of course, casts a pall of suspicion over why you'd even want to remake a movie called The Blob. The film will have a $30 million, which is double what Zombie normally works with. "I'd been looking to break out of the horror genre, and this really is a science fiction movie about a thing from outer space," explained the director. "I intend to make it scary, and the great thing is I have the freedom once again to take it in any crazy direction I want to." Seriously, just give someone else the script. Let Zombie direct it; I'm fine with that. He's probably a second-tier horror director at this point and again, he had shown flourishes of real talent up until this new Halloween. I'd go so far as to say I'd like his direction even more if he had good scripts to work with. That's generally how that goes. Please, do us all a favor and hire somebody who has proven he can write.