Rob Zombie is Rebooting The Munsters, Possibly as a Peacock Exclusive
I guess Rob Zombie really loved completely misunderstanding what made the original Halloween so great when he produced his remake, because he’s been trying to completely misunderstand another beloved IP ever since. At one point, he was all set to remake The Blob… only his version would have no Blob.
Seriously. Not a joke. Rob Zombie wanted to make a Blobless The Blob. I mean…
Zombie’s The No-Blob-Blob never came to pass, but now he’s reportedly set his sights on rebooting The Munsters, the 1960s sitcom about a family of monsters living in the suburbs that wasn’t The Addams Family (which actually pre-dates The Munsters, since it’s based on a comic from the 30s… but I digress). Zombie is apparently a massive Munsters admirer; as of 2010, he’d allegedly already seen every episode at least seventeen times. Still, it’s a Rob Zombie movie all the way (he wrote the script in addition to directing, as per usual), so I assume the Munster family will now be white trash, there will be no jokes allowed, and Eddie Munster will now be an alien instead of a werewolf.
In fact, if the casting reports are accurate, Zombie is already off to an iffy start: Jeff Daniel Phillips, who has had a role in every Zombie flick since Halloween II, has been cast as Herman Munster, while Zombie’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, is going to play Lily Munster, because of course she is. Two other regular Zombie players, Richard Brake and Dan Roebuck, will also be in the movie, in unspecified roles, as will Lost‘s Jorge Garcia and Cassandra Peterson, a.k.a. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
It’s like Universal said “Well, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp aren’t available, so let’s get the budget version of them.”
ANYWAY, Bloody Disgusting is now reporting an unconfirmed rumor that Zombie’s Munsters will be released day-and-date (i.e. on the same day) in theaters and via Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming platform. So basically the same thing AT&T/Warner Media have been doing with recent releases like Godzilla vs. Kong and Mortal Kombat. Disney+ also did it with the last two Pixar movies, and have offered some other theatrical releases, such as Mulan and the upcoming Black Widow, for a $30 fee… but I don’t see people paying an extra thirty bucks to watch a Munsters movie starring ten people they’ve never heard of where Grandpa Munster is an alcoholic strip club owner.
Bloody Disgusting also puts the budget somewhere in the $30-40 million range. Assuming that’s the case, it will be Zombie’s largest-budgeted movie to date, following the Halloweens, which reportedly cost $15,000,000 each.
