James Wan’s Creature From the Black Lagoon Snags Star Trek Writer, New Directing Details Teased

James Wan’s remake of The Creature From the Black Lagoon has snagged a writer: Sean Tretta, who is best known as being a writer/co-executive producer on FX’s Mayans M.C. and Star Trek: Picard. When this Creature From the Black Lagoon remake was first announced, it was said that Wan was ‘in talks to direct,’ and that the Conjuring filmmaker had written a story treatment for the film, alongside Rafael Jordan and Bryan Coyne. Wan would also be producing the feature through his Atomic Monster imprint, with producing partners Michael Clear and Judson Scott.

The original Creature From the Black Lagoon was a trilogy of films, including Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956). Since the 1950s, there have been multiple attempts to remake the original or reboot the franchise for a new era, with so many Hollywood heavyweights taking a swing at one point or another, including John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), John Carpenter (Halloween), and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters). The Creature was also set to be a part of Universal’s short-lived Dark Universe when Universal was aiming to turn its library of monster characters into a Marvel-style franchise.

Instead, Universal has handed its classic monster characters and franchises over to the Insidious team of Leigh Whannell and James Wan, who are taking a modest-budget approach to creatively re-inventing these franchises. Whannell already directed the acclaimed remake of Invisible Man (2020), and has strong buzz behind his remake of Wolf Man (2025), which is set for release in January. Wan is now set for The Creature From the Black Lagoon – although there is no hint yet about if/how he plans to re-imagine the story and The Creature, what kind of budget he’d be aiming for, etc. After directing two Aquaman films for Warner Bros., Wan certainly knows his way around aquatic-based movies. The darker scenes of Aquaman discovering horrors of the undersea world suggest this new Creature From the Black Lagoon could be something great. 

Both Invisible Man (2020) and Wolf Man (2025) use the classic monster mythology as metaphor for darker real-world issues of domestic violence, whether between romantic partners (Invisible Man) or parents and children (Wolf Man). Creature from the Black Lagoon could conceivably be flipped into anything from an environmental metaphor to a revenge parable. The “black lagoon ” part of the title seems like its leaning that way… 

The Creature From the Black Lagoon remake is in development.