There are still more scary stories to tell in the dark, as a sequel to last year’s horror hit ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ is in the works. The same director, André Øvredal, and screenwriters, Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman, are returning. The first movie, which released in late summer, made over $105 million at the global box office, and the best horror opening of 2019 in the U.S.
Guillermo del Toro co-wrote the screen story for the first movie and acted as producer, but it was not reported whether or not he would be involved with the sequel.
The film adapted stories from Alvin Schwartz‘s book series of the same name. Each of the three collections contains 25 or more short stories, so there is plenty of additional material from which to draw for several sequels if needed. The books are written for grade school-age children but are decidedly creepier than other books for this age range. The ghoulish original charcoal illustrations by Stephen Gammell have been a major draw.
The first ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ was set in 1968 in a small rural town in Pennsylvania, and followed a group of teens who discover a book of scary stories written by Sarah Bellows in a decrepit “haunted house.” The cast included Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur, Natalie Ganzhorn, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, and Lorraine Toussaint.
The first movie was produced by eOne and CBS Films and distributed by Lionsgate, but CBS Films ceased to exist when CBS merged with Viacom. The new movie will arrive courtesy of Viacom subsidiary Paramount.
Did you see ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’? Are you excited that a second collection of Schwartz’s stories is headed for the big screen?
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
