‘Attack of the 50 Foot Woman’: Tim Burton to Direct Remake!!

With the long-awaited sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on pace for a debut later this year, director Tim Burton has landed his next project — and it’s a big one. Burton will helm a remake of the 1950s cult classic science fiction movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman for Warner Bros. Deadline reports that novelist and screenwriter Gillian Flynn will write the movie’s script.

The movie is certainly in Burton‘s wheelhouse. His 1994 magnum opus, Ed Wood, chronicled the life and career of a filmmaker whose films were only a few tiers below schlocky drive-in fare like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. His subsequent film, 1996’s Mars Attacks!, was a loving homage to the science fiction films of the 1950s. It’s unfamiliar territory for Flynn, best known for her dark, psychologically-dense novels like Gone Girl and Sharp Objects. However, she did enter the realm of science fiction with the 2020 Amazon series Utopia, which was canceled after one season. She’s keeping a busy schedule; yesterday, HBO announced that she’ll adapt her novel Dark Places into a miniseries for the network.

Made in 1958 for a paltry $88,000 USD, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman was a unique take on the 1950s “giant monster” science fiction movie, a la Them!, Tarantula, or The Giant Gila Monster. It centers around troubled heiress Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes, The Steel Jungle), who has a close encounter with a UFO. Nobody believes her story, including her philandering husband Harry (William Hudson, The Amazing Colossal Man) and his mistress Honey (Yvette Vickers, Attack of the Giant Leeches) — but her story gains some credence when she starts to grow, and grow, and grow. Before long, she becomes the titular 50-foot woman, leaving the local constabulary to deal with her kaiju-sized wrath.

Thanks to its outlandish premise and its memorable poster art, the movie became a hit and is well-remembered by devotees of 1950s monster movies. It was remade with a feminist slant in 1993 for HBO by director Christopher Guest; Daryl Hannah starred as Nancy, with Daniel Baldwin playing her husband. Burton will produce Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman with Andrew Mittman (Elvis) and Tommy Harper (Top Gun: Maverick). Kai Dolbashian (The Consultant) will executive produce.

Tim Burton‘s remake of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman has yet to set a release date. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates, and watch the trailer for the original Attack of the 50 Foot Woman below.