Back From The Dead...

A film about the dead, rising from development hell...

Or maybe it should read dead stop-motion, live-action...

The film version of Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" continues to move along in production at the Mouse.  Just not as a stop-motion film by Henry Selick anymore, but a live-action film directed by Ron Howard.  According to a scoop by The Hollywood Reporter, it appears that Howard is in talks to take the directing chair, and change the direction of the project as well.

I had always hoped that Henry Selick would try and do the project live-action, since they never actually said that it was a stop-motion film.  It was only his other film that was confirmed as a animated film.  It now appears that it will indeed be live-action, just not with Selick.  It's a loss to not get him to do this film, but hopefully Disney will find a project that they can both agree to work on.

For those of you that don't know, the book is a twist on Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" with the character being taken to a graveyard instead of a jungle and ghosts instead of wild animals taking care of the boy.  It's a very sweet story, told through a dark prism with an affirming take on what it is to be alive.  It won the Newberry Medal, the Hugo Award, the Carnegie Medal, and was nominated for several others.  It'll be a great tale for the screen if Howard gets a good screenwriter, and will be a classic Disney film when it comes out.

It appear this project about the dead is very much alive...

Graveyard Of Ideas...

Hopefully, some other ideas are dug up as well...







Now this is a perfect project for the Mouse to adapt...

Walt Disney Pictures has optioned the film rights to Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" for director Henry Selick. Released in 2008, the Newbery Award-winning novel is very much like Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book." While that story follows a human raised in the wild by a group of animals, Gaiman's book follows a boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard after his family were murdered. It's a wonderfully charming, albeit slightly dark tale.

There is no indication that it will be live-action, and since it's Selick, it's likely going to be stop-motion, but this kind of story would be the kind of property that could be slotted into the live-action division of Walt Disney Pictures. The live-action division hasn't been too robust, and even the hits that it has had were modest (with the Pirates franchise being the one exception). The project will be the next one the director does after finishing up his current film which will also be distributed by Disney (and consulted on by the Pixar Brain Trust).

Selick's personality and talent are perfect for this project. Only Guillermo del Toro could handle this story with the care needed to bring it to the screen.

Now, if only Disney would get the rights to "The Thief of Always" for a live-action film...