When Rob Zombie first announced that he was making a new movie based on the classic sitcom, The Munsters, no one really knew what to expect. Putting together a director known for bringing a lot of blood and gore to his movies with a fun family-friendly franchise could have gone many ways, but surprisingly Zombie, who is admittedly the biggest Munsters fan out there, is heading down a spooky but PG-13 rated route with this remake. Now it seems that there is another shock in store as original series star Butch Patrick has revealed that movie is currently sitting with a runtime of over two and a half hours.
Butch Patrick played youngster Eddie Munster in the original series of The Munsters. The actor recently spoke on the 20TIMinutes podcast, and although there is no official confirmation yet about the runtime of the new movie, he seemed to be pretty certain that the current cut of the film is “very long.” He said:
“This movie is going to kill in a really good way. It’s a very long movie, it’s like 2 hours and 38 minutes … but I’ve seen footage and I’ve seen where he’s going with it and it’s going to be great, it really is.”
Of course that long run time could well change once Zombie completes filming and gets to work on a final cut, but it is fair to say that while it has been hard to know what to expect from the start with this project, no one was expecting anything that long to be even on the cards. Zombie has put a lot of effort into his Munsters movie though, and as a project that he has wanted to do for years, it is obvious he is going to make it last as long as he can.
Rob Zombie Has Shared Many Set Updates, Including Images of The Main Cast
While there are many movies shrouded in secrecy these days, The Munsters certainly isn’t one of them. Rob Zombie has been very active on his Instagram account to make sure that fans have been able to follow the creation of the film from the building of 1313 Mockingbird Lane, to the development of costumes and hairpieces, and of course plenty of photos of the cast on set.
The new movie will star Sherri Moon Zombie as Lily Munster, Jeff Daniel Philips as Herman Munster and Daniel Roebuck as Grandpa Munster, with many other stars set to appear including Jorge Garcia, Dee Wallace, Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson and Sylvester McCoy of Doctor Who fame. It was revealed on Wednesday that original Munsters star Pat Priest will also be joining the fun and reprising her original role of Marilyn.
There is no doubt that for any fan of The Munsters, Rob Zombie is one of the safest pair of hands to be at the helm of the modern revival of the show, and while there is still no word whether the movie will be getting a theatrical release or heading straight to streaming on Peacock, fans will be very intrigued to see the final product arrive sometime later this year.