THE HOWLING Getting New Life

Here’s an idea for you.  Let’s take a nearly forgotten, ’80s franchise, one where the first film is almost considered a modern classic.  We’ll reboot it by slapping the subtitle REBORN at the end.  Who should we get to direct this bad boy?  I got it.  A marketing exec.  Let’s completely bypass even giving this to one of the commercial or music video directing guys.  This things cries for a marketing exec.

That is precisely what Joel Kastelberg and Moonstone Entertainment’s Etchie Stroh are doing with THE HOWLING series.  According to Variety, THE HOWLING: REBORN is set to begin shooting in February with a release date around Halloween tentative.  The man behind the camera on this one is to be Joe Nimziki, who, aside from having a playfully goofy last name, was a studio marketing executive for New Line, MGM, and Sony.  Needless to say, this is his feature film debut, and he will be working from his own script.  I’m sure it’s bound to be loaded with dozens of “trailer” moments.

There were seven films in the original HOWLING franchise, which began in 1981 with Joe Dante’s classic.  None of them are worth anything but the cost of the film they were printed on.  With any luck, THE HOWLING: REBORN will serve to be the second best film of the franchise.  It certainly can’t be any worse than HOWLING II…YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF.