Michael Giacchino, the director of Werewolf by Night, has given a rare update on his remake of the 1954 giant-ant movie Them! Asked recently whether the project is still happening after a few years of no news, he said, “Now that the dust is sort of settling, we’re re-getting into it and my hope is that, yes, this is a movie that will get made and we’re doing the best we can.”
Giacchino was announced as the director of the remake back in 2023. At the time he said, “There’s always a movie in your mind that never leaves your head. For me, that’s Them! It wasn’t until much later in life until I learned what it was about, the nuclear age.”
The “dust” he refers to is likely the merger of Warner and Paramount to form Skydance. Them! was originally a Warner project, and with mergers like this it can be hard to know which projects might get cut in the process.
The original Them! is probably the best of the American giant-bug, atomic-monster movies of the 1950s. Released in 1954, it’s about ants that have grown to gigantic proportions because of radiation from atomic bomb tests. They’re first seen in New Mexico, but their threat expands quickly as the race to stop them lags behind.
Whether the remake ever actually happens remains to be seen, but at least there’s a small update, and it hasn’t been forgotten about.
