Shane Black ponders a Monster Squad remake or sequel

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Shane Black had a hand in two big hits in 1987, providing the screenplay for the action classic LETHAL WEAPON and taking an acting role in the sci-fi action classic PREDATOR. He was also involved with a movie that didn't do well at all, co-writing with director Fred Dekker the kid-friendly horror film THE MONSTER SQUAD. Although a failure at the box office, THE MONSTER SQUAD quickly gained classic status itself and is still popular and well loved to his day, nearly thirty years later.

If you need a refresher on what THE MONSTER SQUAD was about: 

When Count Dracula "flies in" from Transylvania to retrieve an ancient amulet, he calls upon some "old friends" to help in his search. With the weird Wolfman, grotesque Gill-Man, mildewed Mummy and freaky Frankenstein by his side, the creepy Count has until midnight to find the amulet and gain final control over the delicate balance between good and evil in the world. When police are baffled and parents perplexed, it takes The Monster Squad, headquartered in the local treehouse, to correctly diagnose the full-moon madness as actual monster mayhem. As midnight draws near, and the ghoulish group gets closer, The Monster Squad pools its questionable resources, getting ready for a monster-ous good time! THE MONSTER SQUAD… they make ghost-busting look like child's play!

As Black prepares to direct THE PREDATOR, an "inventive sequel" to PREDATOR that he has written with Dekker, he also took time to look back on his previous Dekker collaboration, talking about THE MONSTER SQUAD during a recent interview with IGN.

Saying that he loved working on THE MONSTER SQUAD and had fun doing the movie, he mentioned that he would like to revisit the concept with a remake. As fans tend to do, the IGN interviewer suggested a sequel rather than a remake, one that would catch up with the kids from the original film thirty years later. Black seemed to latch on to the idea… with a little hesitation.

When you say the kids are grown-up the first thing I go to is the movie, or the book really, It by Stephen King, which is about kids who fight monsters when they're young, then as grown-ups they're sort of beckoned and they have to return to their childhood hometown. And I think that's kind of close to what you're saying in a way. I don't know how you would distance yourself from that.

It would be interesting to have two movies – one The Monster Squad, and one The Monster Squad and they're 30 years apart and so are the kids; the characters have aged. As long as people understood that's what we're doing, I think that could be fun. That's a good idea!"

Although Black has a point, IT does cover the same ground of having characters fight monsters as children and then again as adults approximately thirty years later, I think the monsters and characters involved are different enough that a sequel to THE MONSTER SQUAD wouldn't be dragged down by IT comparisons.

Our own Mike Catalano definitely believes that a MONSTER SQUAD sequel could work, and wrote up up his own ideas for it in a Necessary Evil article.