Disney Halts Development of Neil Gaiman Adaptation Following Sexual Assault Accusations

The Graveyard Boys appears to be on hold at Disney.

By Charlie Ridgely

Disney has been developing a film adaptation of The Graveyard Book for a couple of years now, with news of the project first breaking back in 2022. Unfortunately, it appears the highly anticipated adaptation has been put on hold for several reasons, including sexual assault allegations brought against Neil Gaiman, the writer of the original 2008 novel.

As first reported by IndieWire, Disney has stopped active development of The Graveyard Book. There are reportedly more reasons for the halting than just the accusations against Gaiman, but his involvement was certainly one of the major factors. Marc Forster, the director behind A Man Called Otto, Christopher Robin, and World War Z; has been slated to helm the picture for Disney. He was working from a screenplay penned by Finding Neverland writer David Magee.

IndieWire's piece does stress that sources close to the situation have stressed that The Graveyard Book is not being shelved entirely. The plan seems to be to return to development at some point, but that it will remain on hold for now.

The Graveyard Book tells the story of a young boy who, following the murder of his family, is raised by a graveyard full of ghosts. While it was in active development, The Graveyard Book hadn't yet entered pre-production, so there were no cast members officially attached to the project. 

Gaiman was also not involved in the project, aside from having written the source material, and he made that clear back in 2022. On Tumblr, Gaiman was asked if he had anything to do with the film, to which he replied, "You know everything I know. And no, no control or say. Fingers crossed that if they make it, it's good." 

On July 3rd, a report from the UK-based Tortoise Media published a four-part podcast series that revealed claims of sexual assault from two different women. One of the women claims she was 18 when assaulted by Gaiman in 2003, while the other said she was 25 at the time of her incidents with the author in 2022. Both women claimed to be in consensual relationships with Gaiman, but said they were subject to non-consensual acts from him.

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Gaiman has denied the allegations.

In addition to The Graveyard Book, Gaiman has written several popular works of fiction that have been adapted to various mediums over the years. They include Good Omens, American Gods, Coraline, and The Sandman.

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