Well today Variety has a nice juicy update on the long-in-development project. It seems Slade has dropped out of the project due to unknown circumstances and fellow genre director Xavier Gens is stepping right in to take his place! I’d say both guys are pretty talented directors so we’ve got something to keep track of either way.
An unnamed European of unspecified nationality is hired to spend an unspecified mid-20th-century year logging wind conditions on a tiny Antarctic island. Anticipating solitude, the bookish young man soon discovers that he has a neighbor—the pathologically reclusive Gruner—and that each night, the island is overrun by humanoid killer amphibians. He and brutish Gruner—who has tamed a “toad” of his own—join forces, killing monsters by night and fornicating with Gruner’s pet by day. Inspired by the creature’s ability to laugh and cry—to say nothing of her perky breasts, knack for housework and wordless submissiveness—the narrator begins to think of the cold-blooded creatures as human.
Based on the novel by Albert Sanchez Pinol, Spain’s Jesus Olmo penned the COLD SKIN script for Madrid and Paris-based Kanzaman. Budgeted at around $23 million, COLD SKIN now sits comfortably in pre-production. Expect more updates on this one soon now that Gens is at the helm.