Plans are afoot for a new Tremors film, as some rights to the franchise revert back to its original creators. More here.
You’re going to have to forgive me a little here, as I’m not a copyright lawyer. Still, there’s a growing concern over copyright in Hollywood, as assorted intellectual property enters the public domain. We’ve seen characters such as Popeye and Winnie The Pooh be shoehorned into horror movies as a result of that, and there’s a small provision in American copyright law that allows original creatives a shot at getting their work back.
It’s hidden away in section 203 of the United States Copyright Act, and the clause in question means that writers, 35 years after selling a screenplay to a movie studio, can serve a cancellation notice and try to get their copyright back. The original creators of the Predator saga, Jim and John Thomas, have been trying with not a lot of luck to do so in that particular case.
Even if a creative got the rights back, what it doesn’t give them is the opportunity to do a franchise continuation per se. Say I’d written a film in 1990 called The Amazing Worm, and a studio had made three films in a franchise based on it, I couldn’t just go back and make The Amazing Worm 4. The studio would own its interpretation, look and feel of the movie. There’s a piece that explains all of this better, here.
However, that doesn’t mean there’s not room for some wiggling. Which is what makes the news that the original creators of Tremors have control over their franchise now intriguing.
The 1990 favourite has been spun out into umpteen sequels, but Stampede Entertainment has now posted on its website that it’s reclaimed the rights to the original script for the film. It’s under a headline that says ‘Stampede wins back (some) rights to Tremors’, and the brackets are important there. But after the rights success was first announced in October of last year, here we are in April 2025, as it gives an indication of what it can do with the rights it has.
In its words:
We’ve been exploring what this may allow us to do, so here’s the update.
First, we aren’t reading outside ideas.
We are discussing a return-to-Perfection sequel, and one or two more outlandish ideas featuring graboids in new settings.
Whatever we decide to pitch to Hollywood, it will not be a remake the first movie with a new cast. Nor will it be a version of our original script for Tremors 5.
It adds that trying to lure Kevin Bacon back to play Val in a future Tremors film is on its list, but offers no promises there. Furthermore, one deal it can cut is for a novelisation of the original movie.
That’s where its rights to the first film end, and its restrictions are marked in a passage from its posting:
Beyond that, it is now clear we have no rights to the first movie and no ability to license anything from it. We cannot license, for example, t-shirts with a graboid on them, or even something with the Tremors title logo (the original script was titled “Beneath Perfection”).
Therefore, all requests for licensing anything from any of the Tremors films must be still be referred to Universal Studios.
You can read the full Stampede Entertainment announcement here.
Others will be watching what the company is up to eagerly, not least other screenwriters whose work is coming up to its 35th birthday. We’ll keep you posted as we hear more…
