MGM is looking to make a comeback after last year’s bankruptcy filing and are turning to Adam Green to help them out. Word from Deadline is that MGM is in talks to acquire the film rights to an adaptation Green wrote of a Greg Taylor book called ‘Killer Pizza.’
Green is well known within the horror genre with such movies as ‘Frozen’, ‘Hatchet 1 and 2’ and ‘Drag Me to Hell’ and has been pegged as an up and coming director. Not only did he write the film adaptation, Green would also directed the film with Chris Columbus (‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’, ‘Night at the Museum’, ‘Fantastic Four’) executive producing. In fact it was Columbus who brought the script to MGM for consideration.
If you’re not familiar with the Greg Taylor book, ‘Killer Pizza’ is about Toby McGill, a teen who dreams of becoming a world-famous chef and lands a summer job flipping dough at Killer Pizza. He then finds out that this pizza joint is actually a front for a monster hunting establishment and he is their newest recruit. Now instead of making pizzas, Toby must learn to use weapons and fight monsters.
With ‘Killer Pizza’, both Columbus and Green hope to bring back the glory days of kid-friendly 80’s style ‘horror’ films like ‘Monster Squad’ and ‘The Goonies.’ “Killer Pizza is gonna feel like one of those old Amblin movies a little bit,” says Green in an interview with Bloody Disgusting, “It’s part Goonies, part Monster Squad…. You ask anybody, what’s your favorite movie? So many people say The Goonies or Monster Squad but why don’t they make it anymore. I think Chris is trying to bring it back around again and I’m just lucky as hell that I’m the one that he picked. (To be working on) something that is exactly what I wanted to do, it’s amazing…I’m actually more excited about that than probably anything ever.” Coincidentally, Columbus was the one who wrote ‘Gremlins’ and ‘The Goonies’ so this is right up his alley.
I’m actually one of those people who enjoyed those movies as well as the ‘Goosebumps’ books series and TV show. At the moment, there are no films that fit the kid friendly horror category and hearing that these two are behind ‘Killer Pizza’ gives me hope that this movie will rank up there with ‘The Goonies.’
