Disney cancels the next film from Coraline director Henry Selick

In 2010, after the very successful release of Neil Gaiman’s CORALINE, writer/director Henry Selick (THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH) left production company Laika Entertainment for reasons unknown and struck a long-term deal with Disney to make stop-motion films for them.  We’ve since heard very little about the deal, with the only news slipping out that Selick was in some way attached to an adaptation of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK (another Neil Gaiman creation).

Well Schmoes, there’s bad news, slightly better news, and outright good news.  The bad news is that Disney has officialy cancelled Selick’s unannounced project (due out October 4th, 2013) – it notified “around 150 staffers working at Shademaker Prods. in San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon of the decision,” giving the reason that “from a creative and scheduling standpoint, the pic wasn’t where it needed to be to meet its planned release date and the studio decided not to continue production as a result.”  The slightly better news is that Selick can still take the project to be made elsewhere, which is something we’ll hopefully be hearing about soon enough. 

The good news is that production on THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is still chugging on its merry way.  There’s of course no timeline for the film, as its awfully hard to know these things when it comes to stop-motion, but as soon as we hear something you’ll be the first to know.

Here’s a synopsis recap for THE GRAVEYARD BOOK: Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place-he’s the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians’ time as well as their timely ghostly teachings-like the ability to Fade. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? And then there are things like ghouls that aren’t really one thing or the other.