Producer Brian Grazer just gave an interview to CNBC in which he confirmed a Splash remake is currently in development at Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment.
“I’m actually gonna do ‘Splash’ today,” said Grazer. “I’m actually going to do it from the point of view of… I can’t say anything about it. There’s a movie star involved, I haven’t announced it.”
1984’s mermaid-in-New York love story Splash not only marked him and director Ron Howard’s first out-and-out smash hit, it also made stars out of Tom Hanks and Darryl Hannah. The interviewer brought up Grazer’s original treatment for the film, titled “Wet,” which was told from the mermaid’s point of view as opposed to the human man.
“We’re going to do a version of that, but I can’t tell you the twist,” confirmed Grazer.
While he may not be able to say the twist, we believe a script acquired by Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment in 2009 titled Merman might give us an idea of what that twist might be. The romantic comedy, written by Jennifer Abu Hollander and Jeff Moskowitz, follows a merman who comes to land so he can win back his mermaid fiancee, who has left him for a real man. So not only would the story be told from the point of view of a male mermaid, it would be a love triangle.
The original Splash, written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel from a story by Grazer and Bruce Jay Friedman, grossed nearly $70 million at the ’84 box office, and co-starred John Candy and Eugene Levy.
