by Conan Simmons – June 18, 2021 – 6:57 pm
After years in development a feature film of ‘The Munsters’ looks set to get filming.
Musician turned popular horror film director, Rob Zombie is currently scouting locations in Hungary to film his dream project, according to his posts on Instagram.
‘The Munsters’ first appeared on television when CBS aired it for two seasons from 1964 to 1966. The series was created by Ed Haas and Norm Leibmann and starred Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster, Al Lewis as Grandpa, Yvonne De Carlo as Lily, Butch Patrick as Eddie and Pat Priest as Marilyn. Original cast member Beverly Owen played Marilyn for the first 13 episodes before being replaced by Pat Priest. Beverly Owen left the show to marry producer Jon Stone who went on to write and produce the iconic television series ‘Sesame Street’.
Several tv movies and reboots followed over the decades. ‘Munster Go Home!’ came out in 1966 and ‘The Munsters Revenge’ in 1981. A fairly successful series, ‘The Munsters Today’ aired from 1987-1991. ‘Here Come the Munsters’ and ‘The Munsters Scary Little Christmas’ hit airwaves in 1995 and 1996 respectively.
Interestingly, in 1973 an animated special ‘The Mini-Munsters’ aired on rival network ABC, the network that competed with the original 1960’s series by airing their own horror-comedy sitcom ‘The Addams Family’ from 1964 to 1966.
From 2004 to 2008 the Wayans brothers (Keenan Ivory, Shawn and Marlon) were actively developing a feature film based on the iconic 1960’s sitcom. However, it never came to pass.
Instead, an hour long pilot called ‘Mockingbird Lane’ aired in 2012 featuring a normal looking Munsters family led by Jerry O’Connell and Eddie Izzard. The pilot has its fans but was not picked up to series by NBC, making ‘The Munsters’ a rare show to have productions at all three of the original major broadcast networks. ‘Mockingbird Lane’ was directed by scandal-plagued director Bryan Singer (director of ‘The Usual Suspects’ and ‘X-Men’). Whether his involvement was the reason for the network pulling the plug has yet to be verified.
In 2017 NBC continued to have hope for rebooting the series. ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’ host and former ‘Saturday Night Live’ cast member, Seth Meyers was in development to produce a new series with Jill Kargman writing. The planned reboot was rumored to focus on ‘The Munsters’ living in a hipster-filled Brooklyn.
Now, Rob Zombie is taking the helm.
Rob Zombie’s previous films include ‘House of 1000 Corpses’, ‘The Devils Rejects’, remakes of ‘Halloween’ and ‘Halloween 2’ and the art-horror film ‘Lords of Salem’.
Though the film is being hyped as a feature it is being produced by Universal 1440 Entertainment, a division focused on producing for non-theatrical platforms. With NBC in desperate need of fresh content for their streaming service Peacock it is very possible that Zombie’s film will be straight to streaming without a theatrical release.
No cast has been announced but rumors are heavy that Rob Zombie’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, will be taking on the role of Lily and ‘Lords of Salem’ star (who played the caveman in a series of popular Geico commercials) Jeff Daniel Phillips will be playing Herman. Daniel Roebuck, Jorge Garcia and Richard Brake might also appear along with Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson and original series star, Butch Patrick.