More than four years have gone by since it was announced that director André Øvredal and producer Guillermo del Toro were re-teaming for a sequel to their cinematic adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series of books. Last year, Øvredal confirmed that Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 2 was still in the works and a script has been written, the project had just been slowed down by the pandemic, the making of his Dracula movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and the Hollywood strikes. We heard in December that writers/producers Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman were fighting to get the sequel made… but now they have given a disappointing update to the folks at Collider: the sequel has stalled.
The screenplay for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 2 has been written by the first film’s writers Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman, working from a story crafted by del Toro. Details on the plot, and what elements the sequel will be lifting from Schwartz’s books, have never been revealed. The Hagemans also produce these movies alongside del Toro.
In the new interview with Collider, Kevin Hageman said, “It’s stalled right now. We actually don’t know. We wrote a draft, Guillermo [del Toro] had a story direction of where to take it… We can’t get into it, but we wrote something, and that’s the last we know. We know a lot of people liked it, but we also know that nothing’s happening right now. We’re in the dark with you guys.“
While the first film was financed by eOne and CBS Films, with Lionsgate distributing, on this one eOne is partnering with Paramount Pictures. The first Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was a box office hit, earning just under $106 million worldwide on a budget of $25 million. The film had the following synopsis: It’s 1968 in America. Change is blowing in the wind…but seemingly far removed from the unrest in the cities is the small town of Mill Valley where for generations, the shadow of the Bellows family has loomed large. It is in their mansion on the edge of town that Sarah, a young girl with horrible secrets, turned her tortured life into a series of scary stories, written in a book that has transcended time—stories that have a way of becoming all too real for a group of teenagers who discover Sarah’s terrifying home.
It starred Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, Lorraine Toussaint, Austin Zajur, and Natalie Ganzhorn.
Do you want to see a Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark sequel? What do you think of the writers saying that the project has stalled? Let us know by leaving a comment below.