Hammer Films is behind movies like The Woman in Black and Let Me In, but they also have a rich back catalog of horror films like Dracula and some sci-fi titles like Quatermass.
In an interview with Heyuguys, Hammer CEO Simon Oakes talked about he success of their current film The Woman in Black, but also talked about projects in the future that could include everything from a Dracula reboot, a monster movie possibly with The Abominable Snowman, and the return of Bernard Quatermass.
When asked about the sci-films of Hammer, Oakes talked about bringing back a familiar name to some. He said, "We are developing Quatermass at the moment. Completely contemporary, but rooted in his character. If you look at the BBC’s Sherlock it’s got enough DNA there, so you could bring him forward and say that this is what Bernard Quatermass would be like today."
He also made sure to note that the new Quatermass would be like the old one, "So he’d still be gruff, an outside, contrary, fighting authority but what would he be doing today? He wouldn’t be doing the Rocket Group because the world has moved on since the 1950s."
As far as the horror movies are concerned, he made sure to call it a reboot and not a remake. Specifically he said "I think Hammer should make a contemporary Dracula and I think if we can find a route in, which we’re looking at right now, then the answer is yes. The thing is that most of the films are remarkable as such, they’re caught in a time capsule of their own but we should a contemporary Dracula, we should do our version of a Frankenstein film."
Looking into new ventures he talked about what the company has already achieved saying "We’ve done a vampire film, we’ve done a haunted house film, we’re looking at a monster movie right now as Hammer did The Abominable Snowman and The Reptile, so we are looking at them. But more rebooting than remaking."
Oakes was proud of the company's individuality and ability to make different movies. He said "If you look back at the old Hammer films there was a strong literary background, it followed on the history of that. There’s an elegiac quality to the films and Let Me In carries on from that, and The Woman in Black is the same. We wouldn’t make a down-the-road exploitative horror, today we’ve announced that we’re starting pre-production on The Quiet Ones which is a poltergeist movie. So wherever possible we like to have a strong story base. I think you can achieve a lot with old-fashioned filmmaking. "
