‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’ Update Starts To Grow At MGM

A modern update of the Richard Matheson novel The Incredible Shrinking Man is starting to come together over at MGM.

The story was adapted for the big screen way back in the year that was 1957. According to Cinema Blend, Matheson and his son Richard Matheson Jr. will pen the screenplay for the adaptation. The author described the film as an “existential action film.”

MGM reportedly acquired the rights to the book last year. Since the original movie is a little out of date — Cold War fears and radiation take center stage in the film — the studio is asking the author to give The Incredible Shrinking Man a modern spin.

Richard Matheson told The Hollywood Reporter:

“My original story was a metaphor for how man’s place in the world was diminishing. That still holds today, where all these advancements that are going to save us will be our undoing. It’s one of those fantasy concepts that does not age.”

Universal originally held the film rights to The Incredible Shrinking Man for many years. Although the studio tried several times to get a new version of the story off the ground, nothing ever came to fruition. When the rights to the story lapsed last year, MGM picked them up.

At one stage in the game, Eddie Murphy was attached to star in a reboot that cast him a magician who shrinks due to a spell.

A new version of The Incredible Shrinking Man isn’t the only project Matheson has lined up for 2013. Gauntlet Press is set to unleash Leave Yesterday Alone and Musings later this year. While Leave Yesterday Alone is a non-fiction account of the author’s college days, Musings is taken from a journal he started back in 1993.

Have you read or seen The Incredible Shrinking Man? Are you looking forward to the update being put together by MGM and Richard Matheson?