CBS Films has nabbed the rights to a children’s book series likely to inspire nostalgia in Millennials. Deadline reports that they are developing Alvin Schwartz’s anthology Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark into a feature film. Saw screenwriters Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton will provide the screenplay, which follows a group of kids who are faced with their nightmares coming to life.
First published in 1981, the first book of what became a three-book series (it was followed by More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones) is officially described as follows:
This spooky addition to Alvin Schwartz’s popular books on American folklore is filled with tales of eerie horror and dark revenge that will make you jump with fright. There is a story here for everyone — skeletons with torn and tangled flesh who roam the earth; a ghost who takes revenge on her murderer; and a haunted house where every night a bloody head falls down the chimney. Stephen Gammell’s splendidly creepy drawings perfectly capture the mood of more than two dozen scary stories — and even scary songs — all just right for reading alone or for telling aloud in the dark. If You Dare!
Gammell’s illustrations were replaced with art by Brett Helquist for a recent 30th anniversary edition of the books, which led to some heavy criticism from fans who grew up with the original artists’s truly terrifying images.
The Sean Daniel Company’s Jason Brown and Sean Daniel are set to produce Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark alongside 1212 Entertainment’s Elizabeth Grave.
