Disney has put the brakes on a planned movie of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, following allegations made against the author.
Plans for a film based on Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book have been put firmly on hold, as the author faces sexual assault allegations. Gaiman has strongly denied the allegations, which have come from two women and were reported here.
In the last year or two, it looked as if Disney was going to push ahead with a screen adaptation of Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, a title first published back in 2008. At one stage, this was set to be a story that the brilliant Henry Selick was looking to bring to the screen (as well as, more recently, a film of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane), but that turned out not to be. However, in 2022 it looked like the film had found a way forward when Marc Forster was revealed to be directing, and David Magee penning the screenplay. Gaiman was not involved in the film itself.
Not much else has been heard of the production since then, but Forster was believed to be still involved, and the story that’s broken at Hollywood trade outlets this morning suggests that the project had remained an active one. In fact, the phrase ‘deep development’ has been used to describe its status within Disney.
However, The Graveyard Book movie is now on pause at the studio, and it’s hard to see it unpausing until the allegations have played out, if at all.
Disney itself hasn’t gone on record with this story as you’d expect, but the Deadline report suggests that there are ‘a number of factors’ behind the studio’s decision to stop work on The Graveyard Book, the allegations being one of them.
Separately, it’s unclear if the allegations were related to Netflix’s recent decision to pull the plug on Dead Boy Detectives after a single season. That was based on his work too.
More news as we hear it.
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