zeph’s pop culture quiz #3

From this one I shied away, as I sincerely do loath the kitten Internet meme. But due to the fate of the kitten in the movie from which the screenshot was taken … without further ado here is this Monday’s question: Who ate the kitten?
    Because ↵#1 who is it? and ↵#2 who built it? both were solved so quickly, I refrain from giving more information right from the beginning.
    Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can always ask for additional hints, and I’ll provide them. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.]

UPDATE 1 (14 November 2011):
As requested, here are some more hints: The screencap of the kitten was taken from the opening of the sequel to the original. The latter was released nearly one and a half decades earlier. The lead in the original was played by someone really cool—it also was his debut appearance. Three decades after the original a remake came to the silver screen. Since then there only were rumours, but who, or what, we are searching for was not to be seen again.

UPDATE 2 (15 November 2011):
The guesses definitely get closer and closer. Here are some more hints: The director of the movie with the kitten in the beginning is well known in another context; he has experience with bottle imps and black gold. If it’s still too cryptic, I’ll post an additional screenshot tomorrow.

UPDATE 3 (17 November 2011):
In the movie Samuel the kitten isn’t the first living being to be swallowed by whom or what we are looking for:
 

UPDATE 4 and solution (18 November 2011):
A new contestant entered the quiz and by ↵one well-aimed shot hit it right away: ↑Beware! The Blob (Hagman 1972) it is—congratulations, ryoku! This sequel was directed by ↑Larry Hagman, who by way of ↑I Dream of Jeannie (Sheldon 1965-1970) had experience with bottle imps—the black gold thing of course referred to ↑Dallas (Moore 1978-1991). All that ryoku got, too, and more: In the original ↑The Blob (Yeaworth 1958) the ↑King of Cool himself, ↑Steve McQueen, played his very first lead.
    And now to the gruesome end Samuel the kitten found:
 

Here we see him encountering the Blob for the first time—and it will be the last. The Blob just has freed itself from a container wherein it was stored away safely in frozen condition. Our hero still is small; it’ll grow with every living being it swallows. The fly it already has swallowed couldn’t add significantly to its mass. Samuel is quite flabbergasted but, nosey as those foolish kittens are, he misses the good sense to run.
 

The Blob first catches his paw. That the film crew could safely do, but having Samuel sucked into that red gelatinous stuff would have enraged the animal rights activists, I guess. So, the last we get to see of Samuel is him (likely some plush toy stand-in) being dragged out of the kitchen window by the abominable adorable Blob :-)