Hollywood Limbo Claims Another Victim: Joe Dante’s LITTLE SHOP OF HALLOWEEN HORRORS Shelved
I was pretty excited about Joe Dante’s Little Shop of Halloween Horrors film project, but it looks like it’s no longer moving forward.
The long-gestating reimagining of Little Shop of Horrors has hit a wall, and according to Dante, that wall isn't budging anytime soon. Dante told The Direct:
“At the moment, like so many things in town, nothing’s happening. And we always hope that will change, but it’s not the greatest time right now to [get] projects off the ground.”
That’s coming straight from the director of Gremlins, The Howling, and The 'Burbs. If he can’t get something moving in Hollywood, it says a lot about the current state of the industry.
The project, first announced last year, was pitched as a darker, Halloween-inspired spin on the cult classic, with hopes of launching a full-blown franchise.
The script was written by Charles S. Haas, a longtime Dante collaborator behind Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Matinee.
Roger Corman, the king of indie horror and director of the original 1960 Little Shop of Horrors, was on board as a producer before his death in May 2024. The producing team also included Brad Krevoy (Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin) and Charles Cohen (Snack Shack).
The original Little Shop of Horrors follows Seymour, a timid florist who discovers a mysterious plant with a taste for human flesh. What starts as a quirky discovery spirals into a horror-comedy descent into madness and murder. The concept practically screams for a reimagining—but Hollywood just isn’t listening right now.
It's a frustrating update, especially for fans of Dante’s signature genre-blending chaos. But in a time when the film industry feels like it's running in place, Little Shop of Halloween Horrors joins the growing graveyard of projects stuck in limbo.
Whether this one sprouts again or stays buried is anyone’s guess.