Joe Dante Nearly Took Over 1996's The Island of Dr. Moreau—Until Ron Perlman Talked Him Out of It
After Richard Stanley was fired from The Island of Dr. Moreau, the studio courted Joe Dante to salvage the chaotic 1996 production — until Ron Perlman urged him to walk away.
File this under great what-if moments: Joe Dante almost stepped in to direct the chaotic 1996 version of The Island of Dr. Moreau after Richard Stanley got fired three days into filming. He didn’t do it — and Ron Perlman is the reason why.
The setup: a passion project implodes
Richard Stanley — the director behind Hardware and Dust Devil — loved H.G. Wells’ novel as a kid and spent four years trying to bring it to the screen. Then the wheels came off almost immediately. As laid out in David Gregory’s documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau, Stanley was booted just as production got going. John Frankenheimer ultimately took over and delivered the film that hit theaters in 1996 with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer front and center.
How Joe Dante almost got the keys
While rummaging through Severin Films’ 'cellar' for a video segment — Severin being the indie outfit known for restoring and releasing cult films on DVD and Blu-ray — Gremlins director Joe Dante mentioned he was offered the gig the moment Stanley was out. He was literally holding Severin’s Blu-ray of Lost Soul when he told the story.
"It was a picture that I almost did because when Richard Stanley was fired, I was called by the company and asked to take over the movie. Ron Perlman, who is a friend of mine, was in the movie, and he said, 'Don’t do this. Don’t come down here. This is a mess. Don’t do it, you’ll regret it.' And so I turned it down. It went, amazingly, to John Frankenheimer, who is one of my favorite directors. I had lunch with him once and I asked him a lot of things about the movie, none of which I can repeat, unfortunately, without being sued."
That’s a pretty blunt warning from Perlman, and a very Hollywood punchline from Dante. If you want to see him tell it, his Severin Cellar visit is out there in video form.
The movie we actually got
The 1996 Island of Dr. Moreau is based on Wells’ 1896 novel, with a screenplay by Stanley and Ron Hutchinson. The story follows a U.N. diplomat who lands on the remote island of Dr. Moreau, a brilliant geneticist pushing past evolution by turning animals into humanlike hybrids. As Moreau and his right hand chase their dream specimen, the creatures catch on — and rise up, endangering the island and, in theory, a lot more than that.
It’s a notorious production for a reason. Brando and Kilmer were reportedly behaving erratically while dealing with personal heartbreak and tragedy, and the on-set chaos shows in the final cut. The cast was stacked, though:
- Ron Perlman
- David Thewlis
- Fairuza Balk
- Daniel Rigney
- Temuera Morrison
- Nelson de la Rosa
- Peter Elliott
- Mark Dacascos
- Marlon Brando
- Val Kilmer
What this little detour says
There’s a world where Dante takes over and we get a very different movie — maybe still a mess, maybe a funhouse classic — but Perlman’s 'do not enter' sign probably saved him a year of headaches. Either way, it’s a very candid behind-the-scenes slice of a production that was already infamous for being cursed long before the cameras rolled.