Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark to be told by John August

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

A film adaptation of everyone's favorite haunting ghost story anthology for kids, SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK, has been in the works for almost a year now; it was last December when CBS Films nabbed a pitch from SAW 4-7 scribes Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton. If you've been impatiently awaiting an update on the film's progress, we finally have one for you: the studio has tapped John August to write a brand new screenplay, which will evidently go back to the source material that terrified scores of young adults back in the day.

SCARY STORIES, inspired by Alvin Schwartz's book series of the same name and featuring memorably chilling illustrations from Stephen Gammell, is being produced by Sean Daniel and Jason Brown of Sean Daniel Company and Elizabeth Grave of 1212 Entertainment will produce, with Roberto Grande and Joshua Long exec producing.

August has an impressive resume: He broke out with 1999's GO (which is an intertwining anthology in its own right) and followed that up with CHARLIE'S ANGELS, BIG FISH, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, CORPSE BRIDE, DARK SHADOWS and FRANKENWEENIE. He's worked with Tim Burton several times, obviously – is that a sign of who might direct? Hmm…