Writer/director Chuck Russell has been fiddling around with his "Piranha" remake for a few months now, and it seems that he’s found a fan in the Weinstein brothers and their Dimension genre label. So they’ll be distributing the flick when the time comes.
Says Variety: "Dimension Films has reeled in domestic distribution rights to "Piranha," the remake of the 1978 genre hit that Chuck Russell will direct in spring.
Pic’s set at Arizona’s Lake Havasu, a vacation hotspot that turns into an all-you-can-eat buffet when a phalanx of fish swim through a crack in a crater formed by a prehistoric eruption at the bottom of the lake.
Russell wrote the script, using elements of drafts by Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger, as well as the original John Sayles script that Joe Dante directed the first time around. That came from a story by Richard Robertson."
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Yes, the original "Piranha" was written by the John Sayles. The guy also wrote the b-movie classics "Alligator," "Battle Beyond the Stars," and "The Howling"!
As far as Mr. Russell is concerned, he’s already proven that he can do a rock-solid monster movie remake ("The Blob"), so bring on the man-eating fish already! It’s gotta be better than the 1995 made-for-TV remake that starred William Katt. (And please don’t PG-13ify the thing!)
