Back in May, word floated around that Tim Burton was diving into the burgeoning Films Based On Board Games market by tackling the RPG Monsterpocalypse. At the time, Burton was being approached to take on whatever role he would and could handle- producer, director, whatever. Well today /Film has put up their transcript with Producer Roy Lee and he gave them a pretty detailed look into where the property is at, including the fact that Burton is developing the project with the intention to direct.

There’s the usual business.. hopefully in theaters by 2012, 3D, Burton’s unique style, on and on, but the most interesting thing is probably how Lee describes their approach to the story…

“The general take on the film that I can give you is that the giant monsters come to earth and start wreaking havoc. The humans, at this point, fight back. And they feel like they’ve destroyed them, but they quickly learn that the monsters that come had actually not died and just sort of burrowed underground and are sending some sort of signal into space. Apparently, it is probably going to be a distress signal. So the humans know that something is going to be coming, they just don’t know what yet. And they know how big these monsters can be. Then it cuts to many years later when nothing has come back, but the humans have prepared for possible monsters coming back. And by this time, they have developed these giant robots that will fight the monsters when they come. That is what is going to take place. But most of the movie is going to be during that battle between the giant robots and the giant monsters.”

It’s difficult to be particularly positive about Burton these days, but I sense an opportunity for fun here, as opposed to the easy avenue toward dour Burton seemingly defaults to now. I don’t have strong feelings on Mars Attacks (or really, any feelings on it at all) but I like that Burton more than I like Alice Burton, no question, and we can always use more big monsters wrecking shit up.

John August is still penciling away on the script, and will likely turn
in at the same time as Burton’s other gestating project Dark Shadows. Even though Dark Shadows has been announced to start shooting in January, Lee believes it’s still up in the air which project would come first, depending on the strength of the scripts. I’m kind of hoping space monsters win instead of the gothic vampire soap opera, Depp/Burton team-up written by the Pride And Prejudice And Zombies lady (which could be the biggest collection of pop culturally cliched nouns and adjectives ever assembled).

But are there enough fans of the original property to overcome the loss of credibility the silly fucking name Monsterpocalypse brings? Could the Burton aesthetic, when applied to space monsters instead of fantastic pale people, be interesting again? Check out the full interview at /Film, and then let us know your conclusion in the comments or on the Message Board.