Lego Movie writers polish Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark for del Toro

Last Updated on July 21, 2021

Although they were published at such a time that they should have easily found their way into my hands when I was a horror-loving little kid, somehow I managed to completely miss out on Alvin Schwartz's trilogy of SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK children's books.

CBS Films has been developing a cinematic adaptation of Schwartz's collections of terrifying short stories since 2013, at which time they hired SAW 4–7 writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan to write the screenplay. A year later, Melton and Dunstan were replaced by DARK SHADOWS' John August, and a year after that Guillermo del Toro signed onto the project to help out with its development, producing and possibility directing.

A PACIFIC RIM 2-sized hole just opened up in del Toro's filmmaking schedule, with Steven S. DeKnight taking over the stories of Jaegers and Kaiju from him, could it be that del Toro might be planning to be at the helm of SCARY STORIES soon?

It may depend on how the latest rewrite turns out, as sibling screenwriters Dan and Kevin Hageman have been brought on board to polish the script, presumably working from the John August draft. The Hagemans' previous credits include THE LEGO MOVIE and HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, and they have recently been working with del Toro on his animated Netflix series Trollhunters.

del Toro's fellow SCARY STORIES producers are Jason F. Brown, Sean Daniel, and Elizabeth Grave.

This movie may very well be my first exposure to the world of SCARY STORIES, so here's hoping – for myself and the established fans – that it will live up to Schwartz's prose.