Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Star Is “In the Dark” About a Sequel

Earlier this year it was announced that a sequel to the 2019 horror movie Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, an adaptation of the childhood classic books by Alvin Schwartz, was officially in the works. The first film was a long time passion project of writer/producer Guillermo del Toro and managed to bring in over $104 million at the worldwide box office from a reported $25 million budget. Actress Zoe Colletti lead the film's young cast and was a focal point of its sequel-bait ending sequence, but in a new interview the Fear the Walking Dead actress says she hasn't heard a peep about returning for the sequel.

"Honestly, I'm in the dark a little bit, as much as everybody else is," Colletti told Decider. "I know it's been cleared to be written, and is in pre-production. But other than that, I don't really know that much about it. I'm assuming I'm going to hear some more stuff about it once the whole industry is fully back in bling. But as of right now, I know as much as all the other folks do. That's what I'm reading as well. Unfortunately for me!

The second film will reportedly bring back the entire behind the camera creative team with Andre Ovredal returning to direct the sequel, Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman penning the script, and Guillermo del Toro writing the screen story. Schwartz's original books took the form of mostly short stories, adapting folk tales and urban legends into terrifying tales for youngsters. They were perhaps best known for the illustrations by Stephen Gammell that were included in the books, something that was a challenge for the filmmakers while making the first movie.

"I believe it's making these characters that are black-and-white drawings come alive in a way that we could really have fans embrace them." Ovredal previously told ComicBook.com of the challenges of the first film. "That always is a huge challenge. And I think we really, we were very focused on making sure that they were really based in the drawings, and then we had to do some things because it's a color film and we're not doing it in black-and-white. So we had to also do some trickery there to ensure that you have that balance, so it stays truthful to the characters in the books, but still lives in a modern film. So that balance was tricky."

It's unclear which tales will factor into the Scary Stories sequel but there's many to choose from across the three books and Guillermo del Toro has some ideas.

"There is 'High Beams,' [Ovredal] wants very bad," del Toro shared with ComicBook.com. "And 'The Ribbon,' I love. I think it's also one of those, the outcome of that story is so memorable, and it's very, very short. Has such a great visual gag."