The creature feature The Blob is set to return with a 21st century remake, with the new version to have a very modernized take on the monster. Speaking to ComicBook for the upcoming second season of Netflix’s The Sandman, producer David S. Goyer shared how the Blob’s origins will be updated in the remake, stating “One of the decisions we made is instead of the Blob coming from space, it’s something that is made in the lab”. Goyer also stated that the new take on The Blob is predicated on modern scientific developments and fears, such as “the use of AI and gene editing and the slippery slope of all that work entails”.
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A second remake of The Blob has been in the works for some time, with David Bruckner boarding a writer and director in 2024, with Goyer also coming aboard as producer. Goyer’s description of the newest iteration of The Blob points to the movie being very topical towards numerous contemporary issues and scientific developments. What is less clear is whether the Blob itself will be fully CGI, a practical effect, or some combination thereof, but 1998’s The Blob presents a very good picture of a Blob created through practical effects technology.
Chuck Russell, director of the 1988 remake of The Blob, also previously spoke to ComicBook on his upcoming horror remake The Witchboard, and commented on the visual effects challenges of bringing the Blob to life in the late ’80s. Asked about the effects of creating the Blob in the late ’80s compared to the prevalence of CGI in modern movies, Russell stated “we would go home covered in real blob slime from the full-scale blob effect”.
The Blob first landed on Earth during the Cold War in the 1958 sci-fi horror movie The Blob, with the denizens of a quiet Pennsylvania town terrorized by an amorphous alien blob that arrives on Earth inside of a meteor. The movie was later remade in Russell’s aforementioned The Blob in 1988, with the Blob landing in a California town in the remake. While following the same basic plot, Russell’s The Blob is a far more intense movie with the carnivorous Blob horrifically devouring townspeople, along with an R-rating enabling the movie to be significantly more gruesome and violent.
Russell’s The Blob is also similar to David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly, in that both are examples of remakes that have overtaken their predecessors in terms of public recognition. Though The Blob did not perform well in theaters in 1988, it has since gone on to become a sci-fi horror cult classic, with the movie’s version of the gelatinous purple predator that is the Blob itself being an unforgettable ’80s movie monster.
While the Blob will surely aim to be just as terrifying a monster in the upcoming remake, the genesis of the creature seems much more rooted in modern times as outlined in Goyer’s description. While the first two versions of The Blob came during a time when space exploration had the world wondering and fearing what life on other worlds might be like, the new remake of The Blob seems rooted in the fear of how mankind might be the architect of his own demise. That certainly sets up The Blob remake as one with a decidedly new spin on a classic sci-fi horror movie monster.
Chuck Russell’s The Blob is available to rent on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango at Home, and Amazon Prime Video.
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