Warners has hired newbie scribes Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald to pen a horror-tinged script centered on the Trench, the deadly amphibious creatures seen attacking the hero and his love, Mera, in Aquaman.

Wan and Peter Safran will produce the project, titled The Trench, which would be much more modestly budgeted than the normal DC superhero tentpole.

The Trench creatures are rather recent arrivals to the Aquaman lore, having been introduced in the comics only in 2011 when DC did a revamp of its entire publishing line. They are revealed to be part of the kingdom of Atlantis but when it sunk, inhabitants who were cut off from other survivors and evolved into ravenous monsters.

Details of the take are being kept submerged but it will be set in the kingdom of the Trench and will not feature the main cast of Aquaman.

Gardner and Fitzgerald were assistants at Bad Robot, JJ Abrams’ production shingle, during the filmmaker’s Super 8 period. They previously wrote a submarine thriller titled The Volos.

The duo is repped by WME.