As a fan of the CORALINE, I’ve been eagerly awaiting what adaptations might come up next from author Neil Gaiman.
When Coming Soon spoke with director Neil Jordan, they found out that he was back on board for bringing “The Graveyard Book” to the big screen.
Here’s a synopsis from Gaiman site before we get into details:
“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.”
Now on to the info. Coming Soon brought up the project, saying that the book included a lot of ghouls and ghosts. Jordan replied, “And Silas the vampire, and Miss Lupescu the werewolf, and all the graveyard creatures. It’s a rather wonderful conception, all these ghosts are terrified of one human being, and normally, it’s the total opposite, so we’ll be running through the graveyard and all the ghosts will be in a panic, like the forest animals in “Bambi.” I think it’s quite cool, ghosts terrified by a human being. So we’re starting to build in sequences like that.”
Jordan also discussed the possibility of what studio might pick it up, “When Neil came to me with the book, he wanted to keep it somewhat outside of the studio system, but it’s proving difficult, because it’s an expensive movie, and movies like that are now made in 3D. We’ve got a budget, and if we can make it for $40 million, we have the financing, but if it goes over $40 million, then we’re in a bit of trouble. Movies like that are very hard to do these days. We were about to do it with Miramax, and Miramax wanted to get into doing larger films, so it was Disney, and we talked to Dick Cook, the head of Disney at that time, and we had it all set up to do that way, with the backing of a large studio, with a large release, and then Miramax collapsed, and then Dick Cook was fired from Disney, so the movie went into a bit of a hiatus. I’ve written a script, and I’ve just delivered another draft, so I hope to be starting production in the fall. I’ve love to start doing it in September. We just don’t know who the studio would be at this point. I think Universal is interested in doing it. Actually, there are four different entities that want to do it, and the thing of American distribution is yet to be worked out. Movies are so bloody complicated.”
As for the casting, the director would like to go with a no name for the project, “I think you’d need an unknown to play Nobody [the main character otherwise known as Bod]. You’d need three people to play him, but there are some great parts for bigger names, like for Silas or Miss Lupescu.”
Maybe he’ll also add Gaiman’s idea of incorporating a banjo version of “Danse Macabre”. How lovely.
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