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DO WANT

Hollywood Is Making Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book & A New The Jungle Book Film

by Jill Pantozzi | 12:55 pm, April 29th, 2012


I doubt there was any sort of discussion about these two projects being announced at the same time but I appreciate the coincidence nonetheless. Henry Selick, of Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas fame, is set to direct Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book for Disney. The novel was loosely based on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book which also just happens to be getting some new attention in Hollywood right now. Harry Potter screenwriter Steven Kloves will be writing and directing The Jungle Book for Warner Bros. Please let these movies come out at the same time so I can make a double feature out of them. 

Deadline writes, “The book, which won the Newbery Medal among other awards, is a riff on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Instead of a boy raised by wolves in the jungle, Gaiman tells the story of the surviving child of a murdered family raised by ghosts in a graveyard.” Nobody Owens is the boy’s name

Selick is already at work at another, top-secret stop-motion film for Pixar and although The Graveyard Book is not that project, it will begin production once he’s done with it. Gaiman posted on his tumblr saying, “I’ve been around Henry’s stop motion studio studio in San Francisco, and although I signed a piece of paper swearing to reveal nothing of what I saw inside to the world, I can confidently state that the film Henry is making now is definitely not The Graveyard Book.”

But that’s not to say The Graveyard Book, now in search of a screenwriter, won’t be stop-motion. After all, that’s what Selick is known for and he directed Gaiman’s Coraline.

The new Jungle Book project from Kloves however, will be live-action according to Deadline. There’s no other details on that project at this time but many of you are probably familiar with the Disney animated The Jungle Book from 1967. Kloves has worked on both the Amazing Spider-Man and Akira screenplays post-Potter.

Are you a fan of either of the books? What do you think of the news?

(via Deadline)

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  • http://twitter.com/diefrankenmaus Kate

    YAAAAAY! The Graveyard Book was fabulous. I just hope the director doesn’t “light-wash” the movie like he did with Coraline. Coraline was originally SUPER dark; while the movie definitely followed the book’s plot fairly closely, the atmosphere was completely different. The book is a true horror novel, while the movie only has scary moments plunked in the middle of a fairytale-like wonderland. 

  • Anonymous

    I guess I missed the whole “fairy-tale like wonderland” vibe, because I was f*cking terrified for most of Coraline (movie version), and this is coming from someone who counts The Shining among her favorite movies.  

  • http://roseeclipse.livejournal.com/ Rose Jones

    I thought the 1967 animated version was mediocre by Disney standards. But oddly enough I like the 1994 “Jungle Book” with Jason Scott Lee and Carey Elwes. Yes, it did take some creative liberties that were not in Rudyard Kipling’s novel. But it was still a fun action-adventure thrill to watch as a kid, I liked the scenery and the characters, especially Mowgli who is torn between a woman he cares about the duties of “law of the jungle”.

    Hope the new version is just as good if not better.

  • Anonymous

     yeah, but the cartoon version had some great music…

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