Director set for 'Fog' remake

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Rupert Wainwright will direct the remake of filmmaker John Carpenter's 1980 horror classic "The Fog," Daily Variety reported Thursday.

Wainright directed the 1999 horror-fantasy "Stigmata," and the 1995 film "Michael Jackson: Video Greatest Hits -- HIStory."

Plans call for "The Fog" to be in theaters on Oct. 21, 2005 -- to take advantage of a recent trend that has seen horror films such as "Saw" and "The Grudge" rack up big box-office numbers during the Halloween season.

Debra Hill, a co-producer on the remake, told Variety the new movie will show audiences images that were only described verbally when Carpenter made "The Fog" for $1 million in 1980.

"For us as filmmakers, the opportunity to use special effects to enhance the fog and make it an actual character in the film is very appealing," she said.

The original starred Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis and Janet Leigh in the story of a fishing town terrorized by a thick fog full of spirits intent on avenging their deaths in a 100-year-old shipwreck.