DreamWorks has shut down Spielberg passion project Haunted

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Based on the Henry James novel Turn of the Screw and scripted by THE CONJURING's Chad and Carey Hayes, DreamWorks' ghost story HAUNTED is said to be a passion project for producer Steven Spielberg. As such, Spielberg and his DreamWorks associates obviously have a clear vision for what they want out of this movie – and now pre-production has been shut down, just weeks before filming was set to begin, because the project was straying away from that vision.

28 WEEKS LATER director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo signed on to direct HAUNTED back in March, and in the months since taking the job he has been working on a rewrite of the Hayes script with CONTAGION scribe Scott Z. Burns. Altering the title, characters, and action, this rewrite made such extensive changes that the project became unrecognizable to the producers.

Fresnadillo is now off the project, the revised script has been scrapped, and the studio plans to continue developing HAUNTED based on the original screenplay by the Hayes brothers.

The story of HAUNTED centers on

a young woman who starts to work at a wealthy estate that she soon realizes is haunted. She believes that the children may be possessed and begins to fear for her life. 

With Fresnadillo gone and the project on hold, it's not clear whether or not recently signed cast members Rose Leslie (pictured above) and Alfre Woodard (pictured below) will remain attached.