EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros is moving forward with a new incarnation of Little Shop of Horrors, with Greg Berlanti set to direct and Matthew Robinson writing the script. This one will be a musical, a fresh version of the 30-year old Frank Oz-directed film. That was based on the Roger Corman-directed 1960 low budget sci-fi campy tale about a clumsy young man who raises a plant, discovers it is carnivorous, and kills to keep it fed. There is a memorable scene with Jack Nicholson as a pain-seeking dental patient in the original, replicated in the musical by Bill Murray. Marc Platt is producing. The 1986 film was scripted by Howard Ashman from his off-Broadway musical, with tunes crafted with his frequent collaborator Alan Menken.
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Berlanti last directed the 2010 comedy Life As We Know It. More recently, he and his Warner Bros-based Berlanti Productions have been busy spearheading six TV series, with Supergirl, Blindspot, The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and the upcoming Riverdale.
Matthew Robinson
Robinson wrote and co-directed with Ricky Gervais The Invention of Lying, as well In Search of Humans, Fox, Chernin and director Wes Ball. He is also scripting several animated film assignments He is repped by 3 Arts and ICM Partners, while Berlanti is repped by WME.