Steven Spielberg (“Jurassic Park”) and Frank Marshall (“Congo”) have been working together at Amblin Entertainment to get a remake of their 1990 horror-comedy “Arachnophobia” off the ground. At one point, horror guru James Wan (“Malignant”) was involved only for Christopher Landon (“Drop”) to be ultimately selected to write/direct a reboot based on the deadly spider invasion flick and finished a script back in 2023.
In a new interview with Landon at Vanity Fair, the filmmaker shared a disappointing update on the horror project as, due to creative differences, Amblin has decided to pass on his version of the film. However, he did not specifically say why or elaborate on what turned off the studio to his incarnation.
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“There was a component that the studio was very nervous about and uncomfortable with—and that’s where we parted. I wasn’t willing to compromise on that,” Landon said without elaborating on what led to the clashes. “I wasn’t going to make a change that really felt like a soul-crushing, sell-out, bad change.”
Further information and plot details were shared by Landon with The Wrap, which could explain those clashes with Amblin.
“A remake in the sense of it being a spider invasion in a small… in this case, it was more of a West Texas town.” Landon’s idea for it was more in the realm of “body horror,” as the spiders would use their fangs to slice into flesh and lay eggs inside the human victim’s body. “It was brutal…There’s a spider invasion, and all hell breaks loose.”
He also wanted to have a mayoral race with a rich/awful oilman trying to get control of the small town played by a “Tim Allen-type” for that role, and Landon also briefly teased that they had “written a great return” for John Goodman‘s pest control character, Delbert McClintock, who had one of the more memorable scenes.
The original synopsis for the 1990 pic from Amblin reads:
When a giant Venezuelan spider discovered by entomologist Dr. James Atherton (the late Julian Sands) finds its way to a rural California town, it draws the residents into a web of hair-raising horror. The new town doctor, Ross Jennings (Jeff Daniels), deathly afraid of spiders, is the lucky host to the foreign arachnid, who takes up residence in his barn and mates with a local female spider. And when their offspring hatch, it’ll be up to the idiosyncratic bug slayer Delbert McClintock (John Goodman) to save the day…
“Arachnophobia” was one of a handful of successful directorial efforts from Marshall, which could explain the studio holding the project in such high regard and being protective of it. Don Jakoby and Al Williams were behind the film’s story, with Wesley Strick tackling the screenplay.
Spielberg, for his part, is back, working alongside Amblin for his upcoming and mysterious UFO movie that is being released by Universal Pictures on June 12, 2026.
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