In the early 1980s, writer S.S. Wilson was climbing over large boulders in the Mojave Desert when the thought occurred to him, “What if something was under the ground and I couldn’t get off this rock?” That thought would eventually grow into the story for one of the greatest creature features ever made, Tremors (watch it HERE), which was directed by Ron Underwood from a screenplay Wilson wrote with Brent Maddock. That movie, released by Universal in 1990, introduced viewers to the subterranean monsters known as Graboids and spawned a franchise that has – so far – consisted of six direct-to-video sequels and a TV series that ran for thirteen episodes back in 2003. Wilson, Maddock, and their production company Stampede Entertainment were behind the first four movies and the TV show, and they had written a script for Tremors 5… but Universal kept the script on a shelf for several years, and when they decided to dust it off and give the movie a greenlight, they made one of those incomprehensibly bad decisions that Hollywood makes from time to time and decided to make Tremors 5 without the involvement of Stampede, having their script rewritten on the way to production. Then Universal made two more sequels without Stampede, but with poorly re-designed versions of the creatures and scripts that suffered without Stampede’s input. Last year, Daily Dead discovered that Universal Pictures’ 1440 Entertainment division had been developing a Tremors reboot that was going to be directed by Bill Watterson (Dave Made a Maze), but the project was cancelled… and now it has become clear why Universal was plotting a reboot. It’s because they knew they were running out of time to make Tremors projects without the involvement of Stampede. In the United States, copyright holders can terminate the transfer of their rights after 35 years. We’ve recently seen this happen with screenwriter Victor Miller and Friday the 13th, with James Cameron and Terminator, and others – and now the same can be said for Tremors. The copyright to the original screenplay is now in the hands of Stampede Entertainment!
This past weekend, the 2nd Annual TremorsFest was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Wilson broke the great news to the fans in attendance: “What we have now, just got, are the rights to our original screenplay. That’s good, we can remake (Tremors) if we want to. We don’t have the rights to Shriekers, we don’t have the rights to Ass Blasters, we don’t have the rights to Tremors 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.” But they do have the rights to the original Tremors in the United States, including all of the characters, creatures, and locations in the script, and that’s a great place to start.
This turn of events has come about thanks to lawyer Marc Toberoff, who also represented Victor Miller in the Friday the 13th case, and Tremors fan Levi Dylan Burzlaff-Luett, the host of the Talking Tremors podcast. It was Burzlaff-Luett who got Stampede and Toberoff in contact with each other (and who shared the video of Wilson’s announcement on Facebook). The struggle to get the copyright back in the hands of Stampede was a long process that has been going for years, but it has finally reached it conclusion.
As for what Stampede might do with Tremors now that they have the rights, it’s good to hear that a remake is not actually their goal. Rather, Wilson told Burzlaff-Luett that “Stampede has ZERO intention to do a remake of the first movie. They’re most likely going to try to make a sequel that’s set in Perfection, Nevada with the remaining cast and crew and another Graboid threat. Marc Toberoff would love for them to pull a Prey style approach to a sequel film.” It’s worth noting that “Stampede doesn’t have the foreign distribution rights, so they still have to go to the table for negotiations with Universal about selling outside of America.” Stampede is also said to be working on getting some Tremors merchandise out into the world.
It will be exciting to see how Stampede moves forward now that they have the Tremors copyright, and another Graboid-centric sequel set in Perfection sounds great to me. The only cast member who stuck with the franchise through every sequel and the TV series was Michael Gross, so there’s a good chance we would get to see him reprise the role of Burt Gummer in the new film (despite the latest sequel’s attempt to kill him off) – and for the last few years, Tremors star Kevin Bacon has let it be known that he wants to come back to the world of Tremors. He even starred in a pilot for a second Tremors TV series, but Syfy didn’t pick it up. Will this be Bacon’s chance for a Graboid rematch? We’ll have to wait and see. For now, it’s just comforting to know that this franchise is back in the right hands. Universal won’t be able to leave Stampede out anymore.
Are you glad to hear that the Tremors copyright is now with Stampede Entertainment? Share your thoughts on this news by leaving a comment below.