Oh dear, we're not sure what to make out of this news. Seth Grahame-Smith, the author behind Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (which I liked OK) and the screenplay for Dark Shadows (which everyone loathed), is getting his directorial debut remaking our beloved Something Wicked This Way Comes. Dammit, why couldn't they start him with Battleship 2 or something?
Ray Bradbury's wonderfully creepy supernatural novel is getting yet another movie adaptation from Disney. This book is essential supernatural reading. Essential. And even though Bradbury didn't love the 1983 film, starring the immaculate Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark, the movie itself still managed to maintain a lot of what made this novel fantastic. True, the movie was a bit watered down, but it was still spectacularly spooky and channeling that autumnal wonder of the Americana midseason.
Now Deadline is reporting that Grahame-Smith will write a treatment for the film, pass it off to another writer for the full script and then direct the movie himself. Naturally, this has us very, very worried. Dark Shadows was bad. Very bad. The script and everything else in that movie was just rotten (the costumes were nice, though). However I did read SGS's Lincoln book, and I enjoyed it. And the movie adaptation was accurate in spirit and ridiculousness, although Charlie didn't love it. And K. Tempest Bradford didn't love it either.
Grahame-Smith has written a lengthy tribute to Something Wicked This Way Comes over at NPR, and while that's super great and we're happy he loves it too, it doesn't calm our "NO NO NO NO NO" impulse.