Look out, look out, look out, look out, the plant known as Audrey II is coming to devour mankind once again. According to Deadline, Greg Berlanti is going to direct a reboot of Little Shop Of Horrors for Warner Bros. Deadline’s report says that it will be “a fresh version of the 30-year old Frank Oz-directed film,” which in turn was based on Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s Off-Broadway musical adapted from a 1960 Roger Corman movie. Matthew Robinson, whose credits include The Invention Of Lying, is tasked with the new screenplay.
So what does a 21st-century Little Shop movie mean? Well, they are probably going to CGI the shit out of Audrey II for one. The one possibly positive change they could make to the 1986 film is to restore the musical’s original, more gruesome ending in which Audrey and Seymour are both eaten. The circumstances are slightly different in the play than in the director’s cut of Oz’s movie, but, needless to say, both end in death. Hopefully Berlanti will embrace the darkness in Little Shop’s soul, and not fuck around with Ashman and Menken’s unimpeachable score.
And, if anyone needs casting advice, Jake Gyllenhaal recently did a well-received Seymour in a concert production opposite original Audrey, Ellen Greene.