MGM Rebooting ‘Shrinking Man’ with Sci-Fi Author Richard Matheson

Science fiction author Richard Matheson is about to turn 87 years old, but he’s far from retirement. THR reports that Matheson and his son, Richard Matheson, Jr., will co-write a screenplay for a new film adaptation of the elder’s 1956 story The Shrinking Man. The book has been adapted before, most famously in the iconic 1957 movie The Incredible Shrinking Man, and there had been talk of Eddie Murphy starring in a comedic version for Brett Ratner, but thankfully that never came to pass. Now MGM scooped up the rights after they lapsed at Universal and this new adaptation will be updated for modern audiences. The original story was conceived when fear of the atomic bomb was a constant in American society, so the story involved a man who was exposed to a cloud of radiation and began steadily shrinking a few months later. His relationship with his wife is strained, he becomes a hyped media sensation, and ultimately shrinks so …