TREMORS: ISLAND FURY, the seventh film in the TREMORS franchise, began filming in Thailand yesterday, and star Michael Gross marked the occasion by sharing the first image of the shocking new look his character Burt Gummer will be sporting in the movie. Burt has been around since the very first TREMORS in 1990, and through the sequels and the short-lived TV series his look has been rather consistent. He always has a mustache, and he always wears a baseball cap. When the films started out, he had some short hair on his head, and in the last couple sequels his head has been shaved.
Now, Burt has shaken things up. It's not clear if he has hit a rough patch since the events of TREMORS: A COLD DAY IN HELL, if he has been doing some kind of survivalist challenge, if he just felt like getting hairy, or if he has been making some cash being the most intense mall Santa ever, but for some reason he has long white hair and a full beard when we catch up with him in TREMORS: ISLAND FURY.
The image above is a side-by-side comparison of his appearance in A COLD DAY IN HELL with the ISLAND FURY look.
TREMORS 5: BLOODLINES and A COLD DAY IN HELL director Don Michael Paul returns to the helm for the latest sequel, working from a script written by franchise newcomer Brian Brightly. In Brightly's story,
the deadly Graboids are back, illegally brought in to a new island resort by a rich playboy looking for a trophy hunt.
Gross had been hoping his BLOODLINES and A COLD DAY IN HELL co-star Jamie Kennedy would be joining him in this one, but Kennedy opted out.
The actors who have signed on for the film are Jon Heder, Richard Brake, Caroline Langrishe, Jackie Cruz, Cassie Clare, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Matthew Douglas, Randy Kalsi, Bear Williams, David Asavanond, Boonma Lamphon, Aukrawut Rojaunawat, Iris Park, and Mikey Black.
We'll keep you updated as we hear more about TREMORS: ISLAND FURY. In the meantime, all six previous TREMORS movies can be purchased in this collection. Completists will also want to pick up the episodes of the 2003 TV series.