Rob Zombie’s ‘Munsters’ Debuts First Cast Photo
Some filmmakers are incredibly secretive about their projects. They will go to any length to hide their actors, sets, costumes, and plots from the public until they’re ready to properly reveal them in trailers or posters.
And then there’s Rob Zombie.
For the past few months, Zombie has been in Hungary, working on his film adaptation of The Munsters, the popular 1960s sitcom about a family of lovable monsters. And over that time, he’s provided his 2.2 million Instagram followers constant updates about the status of the project: Makeup tests, pictures of the construction of the new Munsters house. Today he shared the first official photo of the cast in front of the house.
“Since Halloween is rapidly approaching,” Zombie wrote, “I thought it was the perfect time to MEET THE MUNSTERS! Direct from the set in good old Hungary I present Herman, Lily, and The Count sitting in front of the newly completed 1313 Mockingbird Lane.”
That’s Jeff Daniel Phillips (who previously appeared in Zombie’s The Lords of Salem and 3 From Hell) as Herman, Sheri Moon Zombie (Zombie’s wife and frequent collaborator) as Lily, and Dan Roebuck (a veteran character actor who appeared in The Fugitive and Final Destination) as Grandpa. The roles were originated on television by Fred Gwynne, Yvonne De Carlo, and Al Lewis, respectively.
The Munsters lasted on CBS for just two seasons and 70 episodes in the mid-1960s. But the show remained very popular for decades in syndication, prompting a series of TV movie sequels, and then a full-fledged second series, The Munsters Today, which actually produced more seasons and more episodes than the original show. Several other well-known film and TV makers have tried to reboot The Munsters since then, including Hannibal’s Bryan Fuller, who made a pilot called Mockingbird Lane that wasn’t picked up by NBC. The Wayans brothers worked on their own Munsters in the mid-2000s, but that went nowhere as well. Even more recently Seth Meyers proposed a modern Munsters show that would have been set in Brooklyn. When that fell apart, Zombie got his chance to make what is clearly a passion project.
Rob Zombie’s The Munsters is due to premiere on Peacock at some point in 2022.