Fans of J.A. White's horror-fantasy children's book Night Books, this one's for you! It's been announced that Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones, Breaking Bad), Winslow Fegley (LARRY), and Lidya Jewett (Good Girls, HIDDEN FIGURES) will star in the Netflix film adaptation with David Yarovesky (BRIGHTBURN) set to direct.
Based on the novel of the same name by J.A. White, the story follows Alex (Fegley), a boy obsessed with scary stories, who is imprisoned by an evil young witch (Ritter) in her contemporary New York City apartment. He meets Yasmin (Jewett), who is also trapped there, and learns he must tell a new scary story every night in order to stay alive. (via Deadline)
As a way to up the project's horror factor, Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert will produce through Ghost House Pictures, alongside Mason Novick and Michelle Knudsen for MXN Entertainment. Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis will adapt the script.
Yarovesky made his feature directorial debut in 2014 with THE HIVE, a mind-bending Sci-fi thriller that tells the tale of a young man suffering from amnesia who must dig deep into the far reaches of his mind to remember who he is and save the love of his life before a virus that has infected him takes over. Yarovesky then unleashed BRIGHTBURN in 2019, a dark superhero drama that played much like an anti-Superman spectacle. In the film, a child from another world crash-lands on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he becomes something far more sinister. BRIGHTBURN might have only earned $32.8 million at the worldwide box office, but it garnered enough praise from superhero fans to make Yarovesky a trusted name among filmmakers capable of bringing fantastical features to screen. I'll be curious to see his approach to Night Books, as fantasy films are almost always my jam. Bring it on.