Are You Afraid of the Dark? Cast Announced

Nickelodeon has announced the cast of its new Are You Afraid of the Dark? limited series revival - a re-imagining of the classic teen-horror anthology series. Check out the full list below, courtesy of Deadline:

The cast will include Sam Ashe Arnold (Best.Worst.Weekend.Ever.), Miya Cech (Rim of the World), Tamara Smart (Artemis Fowl), Jeremy Taylor (It), Lyliana Wray (Black-ish), and Rafael Casal (Blindspotting).

That's an ensemble of some pretty well-experienced fresh-faced actors, which gives this new Are You Afraid of the Dark? a major headstart in terms of performance potential. These kids definitely have the skills to thrill young audiences in the same way '90s kids (like myself) were back in the heyday of the original series.

Here's what Nickelodeon revealed about the new Are You Afraid of the Dark?, back when it was first announced:

"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."

As mentioned in the synopsis above, there was supposed to also be a film adaptation of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, though that seems to have stalled in production. It was scheduled for release this October, but has since been pulled from the release schedule over at Paramount. Deadline notes that the "movie has since been moved out of its October 11 release date and is expected to debut later following some behind-the-scene changes." Here's what the writer of the film, Gary Dauberman, had to say to fans in a past interview:

"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."

Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark? limited series is now in production.