Ron Howard sneaks by Henry Selick to take the directing job on Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book

Aww, man. Not going to lie, I’m a little sad about this move.

Disney’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s THE GRAVEYARD BOOK has given the directing torch to Ron Howard…well, they’re working on it. Right now, the helmer is in talks to take on the adaptation. It is also become a live-action movie.

Once upon a time, Henry Selick was attached to direct the adaptation as a stop-motion feature. It was even given a release date: October 2013. Then sadly last Summer, the studio and Selick parted ways over scheduling and development. Gaiman and Selick make such a terrific pair, so it was a bummer to hear that this vision would not be working out.

The book focuses on, “a boy named Nobody Owens who is raised by ghosts in a cemetery after his family is murdered. When he is a teen, he is pursued again by his family’s killer, a being called “the Man Jack.”

Howard will do a rewrite on the script, and as you may figure will produce with Brian Grazer under the Imagine Entertainment banner.