The Hollywood Reporter announced today that the team behind Tron: Legacy are being tapped to remake The Black Hole. No, not the Black Hole from 2006 that stars Judd Nelson and Kristy Swanson as nuclear physicists trying to stop a monster that emerges from a black hole in St. Louis (seriously), The Black Hole, the 1979 Disney flick.
The original had an impressive cast (Maximilian Schell! Robert Forster! Anthony Perkins! Ernest Borgnine! Robot voices by Roddy McDowall and Slim Pikins!) and was a pretty enormously expensive film at the time, costing a solid 26 million. It made back its money and managed to make the studio a major player in the world of computer effects. After its success Disney went on to expand upon the impressive 3D effects (it had the longest CGI shot in film history upon release), leading to Tron a few years later.
Besides the involvement of Tron: Legacy‘s director and producer (Joseph Kosinski and Sean Bailey) there is no word on what the story for the remake is about, but apparently there’s going to be an attempt to make the black hole more scientifically sound this time. Still, let’s hope they fight off an army of robots at some point.
It certainly shows a lot of faith in Kosinki (as well as the strength of the Tron brand), as Tron: Legacy is the man’s directorial debut. The film will hit next December, and it’s likely that The Black Hole will be next up.
Wonder if they could possibly improve on those vector graphics on our boards!