First Are You Afraid of the Dark? Reboot Footage Debuts

Are You Afraid of the Dark? Is returning to Nickelodeon. The network today released the first look at the rebooted horror limited-series. Launching in October, the series consists of three hour-long episodes starring a new Midnight Society. The kids tell tales about the Carnival of Doom as the story comes to life around them.

The new members of the Midnight Society are: Gavin, played by Sam Ashe Arnold (Best.Worst.Weekend.Ever.); Akiko, played by Miya Cech (Rim of the World, Always Be My Maybe); Louise, played by Tamara Smart (Artemis Fowl, The Worst Witch); Graham, played by Jeremy Taylor (It, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween); and Rachel, played by LylianaWray (Top Gun: Maverick, Black-ish). The Carnival of Doom's ringmaster, Mr. Tophat, is played by Rafael Casal (Blindspotting).

The Are You Afraid of the Dark? limited series is produced by ACE Entertainment (To All The Boys I've Loved Before, The Perfect Date) with ACE founder Matt Kaplan and Spencer Berman serving as executive producers. The series is written by BenDavid Grabinski (Skiptrace) and directed by Dean Israelite (Power Rangers movie, Project Almanac), both of whom will also executive produce.

D.J. MacHale and Ned Kandel created Nickelodeon's original Are You Afraid of the Dark? series, which ran from 1992 through 1996 and returned from 1999 through 2000. The series broke new ground by presenting horror entertainment aimed at a younger audience, told of the children's' perspectives.

When the miniseries was announced, it was to coincide with the release of the Are You Afraid of the Dark? feature film into theaters, as Nickelodeon said in its statement: "The beloved anthology series will return this October as a brand-new miniseries and follow new members of the Midnight Society as they gather around a campfire in the woods to share scary stories," the cable network announced via press release. "The miniseries will coincide with the upcoming Are You Afraid of the Dark? theatrical movie from Paramount Pictures, Paramount Players', and NickelodeonMovies, in theaters October 2019."

Since then, the film has been removed from Paramount's schedule. Writer Gary Dauberman has left the project, despite having strong feelings about the series.

"That show is so important to me. I didn't want to age it down too much because for it's time, it had some really disturbing episodes and some really dark episodes. Not every story the Midnight Society told ended with happily ever after or a person learning their lesson and it will never happen again," Dauberman previously told SlashFilm. "I really embraced that side of things and I think it's been a long time. I think fear is healthy for kids. I don't think we have to always sand down the edges of things and that's something I really wanted to do with Are You Afraid of the Dark? I think it is scary and I think kids will be scared watching it at times, and also they'll laugh at times. I think it's got a great message. I think it's got a great heart to it but it is still scary. I think that's great. I think it's going to open it up to a wider audience."

Nonetheless, plans for the limited series revival are moving forward. Are you excited? What did you think of the footage? Let us know in the comments.