Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ Moving Forward

In the world of genre cinema, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has built a reputation for himself for crafting masterpieces, with the world at large realizing this fact when his latest film, The Shape of Water, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. This achievement has clearly opened many doors for the filmmaker that were previously closed, with the confirmation that a project he’s been working on for quite some time, an adaptation of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, is finally moving forward.

CBS Films and Entertainment One will co-finance the film, which is set to begin shooting this summer. Del Toro co-wrote the adaptation and will serve as producer while André Øvredal will serve as the film’s director. Del Toro had previously been attached as a director but, possibly due to his busy scheduled, has stepped aside to have Øvredal take the reins.

As described by Deadline last year, “The thriller follows a group of young teens who must solve the mystery surrounding sudden and macabre deaths in their small town. Kevin Hageman and Dan Hageman (The LEGO Movie) wrote the most recent draft based on the books.”

The trilogy of books were comprised of short horror stories aimed at children, written by Alvin Schwartz. Originally published in 1984, the books have sold more than 7 million copies. In addition to Schwartz’s stories causing nightmares, the iconic series also frightened and fascinated young readers with Steven Gammell’s macabre and grotesque illustrations.

This marks only the latest in a string of adaptations of popular horror stories aimed at young audiences in recent years, with this genre and demographic proving to be on the rise.

In 2015, Goosebumps hit theaters starring Jack Black as the author R.L Stine who wrote a series of books covering all sorts of horrors for young readers. In the film, the characters from the stories came to life to torment the author. A sequel to that film will be landing in theaters later this year.

The popular ’90s TV show Are You Afraid of the Dark? will also be getting a feature film adaptation from screenwriter Gary Dauberman, who wrote last year’s IT. The Nickelodeon series featured teens meeting every week by a campfire to tell each other horrifying tales.

Stay tuned for details about the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark adaptation.

Are you looking forward to checking out this adaptation? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!

[H/T Bloody Disgusting]