Ways to alternate the movie....

First off. I agree about the spider, He is the most uniteresting part of the story and he would play a minor part if any in the remake.

Id tell the story from the daughters perspective in the future. ( probably when she was in high school or college) She would remember back to what it was like through flashbacks when her father was the incredible shrinking man years earlier. Meanwhile, it turns out her father stopped shrinking at about an or two and had found a way to survive in the basement. We would see his surviving in the basement intermixed with beth's flashbacks. ( this would allow us to see scott's memories as well as beth's in flashbacks.)

Eventually the two stories would come together about halfway through the movie when Beth decides she must return to face her memories and to pick up a few mementos from their old basement where she finds her dad struggling with his daily battle for survival. Overjoyed to find him still alive, Beth rescues him from his cellar prison and the story would continue on from there!