Followers have been ready years to see what occurs subsequent with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and it appears like director André Øvredal is simply as wanting to get the sequel rolling.
The irritating half is that the film’s largest impediment has nothing to do with scripts, casting, or creative path. It’s all tied up in a authorized scenario involving studios that don’t even exist anymore.
Øvredal has carved out a cool profession in horror through the years. After breaking out with Troll Hunter in 2010, he adopted it up with the creepy and underrated The Post-mortem of Jane Doe. However it was 2019’s Scary Tales to Inform within the Darkish that basically pushed him into larger studio territory.
Produced by Guillermo del Toro, the movie tailored the beloved nightmare-fuel kids’s books written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell.
Del Toro’s involvement gave the venture a variety of further consideration, and although some critics felt the film pulled its punches on the horror facet, audiences nonetheless linked with it because of the creepy creature designs, eerie ambiance, and nostalgia surrounding the books.
A sequel announcement shortly adopted in 2020, and issues sounded promising for some time. By 2023, Øvredal revealed {that a} script had already been written and was going by way of revisions. Then all the pieces out of the blue went quiet.
Now we lastly know why. Talking with /Film, Øvredal defined that the sequel has been twisted up in an unsightly rights scenario attributable to the shutdown of two corporations concerned with the unique movie, CBS Movies and eOne.
He stated: “What I can say is that it’s been caught in a little bit of a copyright possession hell with two studios that don’t exist anymore, that produced a film collectively, CBS Movies and EOne, and so they don’t actually exist anymore.
“The rights unfold out to 2 different corporations, after which they need to comply with determine it out between them, and that has taken a while, however there may be motion.
“We do have conversations about it as soon as each couple of months, and there may be at present some motion, I’m gathering. However it turns into about authorized departments and never about creatives, as a result of we’ve got a narrative that I really like that’s simply able to go at any time when someone decides, ‘I personal the film, let’s go make it.’”
That’s a crappy scenario for a filmmaker who clearly nonetheless desires to make the film occur. It sounds just like the creative crew is principally sitting round with a completed story whereas attorneys and company possession points hold the entire thing frozen in place.
The unique movie had loads of room to develop into an even bigger horror franchise, particularly contemplating what number of terrifying tales from Schwartz’s books nonetheless haven’t been tailored. Followers had been additionally curious to see the place the surviving characters’ story would go subsequent after the setup within the first film.
Within the meantime, Øvredal’s subsequent horror venture, Passenger, arrives in theaters on Might 22.
