Seth Grahame-Smith to direct Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Disney is making a new version of the classic Ray Bradbury thriller novel SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES and has set ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER writer Seth Grahame-Smith to make his feature directorial debut on the project, according to Deadline.

Bradbury's classic novel tells the story of…

…Mr. Dark, the evil proprietor of a traveling carnival who preys on the residents of a small town by bartering possession of their souls for the dreams each one has.

You may remember that Disney has tackled SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES before with Jack Clayton's 1983 film of the same title that starred Jason Robards, Diane Ladd, and Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark. Grahame-Smith said it was his favorite book as a child, but he doesn’t feel the movie is sacrosanct. Although the late Bradbury wrote the script, he later lamented that the movie lost a lot of the book. Grahame-Smith intends to put it back and plug a new generation into the tale, sharing…

I’m not remaking the movie; I want the haunted atmosphere that makes the book so chilling, and I want to reinstate some of the classic scenes from the book that were missing from the ’83 film.”

Grahame-Smith will begin work immediately writing a treatment, and the studio then will hire a writer to script the project. Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg’s KatzSmith Productions will be the producing banner and Katzenberg will produce the film.