Bryan Singer, director of "The Usual Suspects," "X-Men," "X2" and "Superman Returns" has been tapped to helm a reboot of the vintage TV classic monster spoof, "The Munsters." Deadline Hollywood reports that the project, written and produced by Bryan Fuller ("Pushing Daisies"), is described as "an imaginative reinvention of 'The Munsters' as a visually spectacular one-hour drama."
Funny. For a second there I thought they said "drama."
Singer has worked in television before. He directed the pilot of the long-running medical drama "House," and continues to executive produce that series. He also directed the pilot of "Football Wives," and executive produced "Dirty, Sexy Money" at ABC. The pilot to Fuller's cult favorite "Pushing Daisies" was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld ("The Addams Family," "Men in Black"), primarily a feature director.
The reboot of "The Munsters" is based at NBC. The original aired on CBS from 1964 to 1966. Shot in black and white, the series was a half-hour sitcom about the domestic life of a family of monsters based on the classic stable of Universal Pictures monsters. Fred Gwynne played Herman Munster, who bore a conspicuous resemblance to Frankenstein's monster. He was married to Lily Munster (Yvonne De Carlo), who resembled to varying degrees Elsa Lanchester in "The Bride of Frankenstein" and Carroll Borland in "The Mark of the Vampire." The couple had a son, "Eddie," a wolfboy played by Butch Patrick. Veteran character actor and Vaudevillian Al Lewis played "Grandpa," a vampire costumed firmly in the Lugosi mold, despite the fact that the Christopher Lee era was well-underway. Rounding out the cast was niece "Marilyn," a perky blond in the Sanda Dee mold, with a girl-next-door sexiness, played in the first 13 episodes by Beverly Owen, and thereafter by Pat Priest. Click on the lower box to the left to see the season two intro to the original series.
Produced by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, producers of "Leave It to Beaver" and writers of radio's "Amos 'n' Andy," "The Munsters" featured moody production values that belied it's broad, farcical comedy. The exterior of the Munsters' house, a crumbling Victorian mansion, was a fixture on the Universal backlot, and had already been seen in the background of "Leave It to Beaver" and various movies. It has since been seen on "Coach" and "Desperate Housewives."
Herman and Lily Munster, by the way, were one of the first couples, married or otherwise, to be seen in the same bed on network television.
This is not the first redo of "The Munsters," which has also received feature film treatment with the original cast, and various television remakes over the years. Casting for the Fuller/Singer version has not yet been announced.
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