A few months ago came the news that Paramount and Entertainment One are proceeding with a sequel to 2019’s “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” the young adult-targeted horror film based on Alvin Schwartz’s popular kids books.
The story follows a group of friends who discover a strange book with the ability to bring their greatest fears to life and saw characters like The Pale Lady, The Toe Monster, Harold the Scarecrow and the Jangly Man among others brought to life.
However the books contain at least five dozen stories and numerous more sketches and designs, and so there remains plenty of material left to mine. Andre Ovredal, who helmed the first film and is returning for the second, was asked how the new film was progressing this week. He tells Collider:
“Production-wise we’re in a holding pattern, but not really because we’re just developing the story and the script, which is a time consuming process because there’s no point in making a sequel to that movie unless it’s elevated and it’s great and it’s ideally better than the first movie. I learned so much on Scary Stories, but also about Scary Stories and I do think that we’ll tap even more into [illustrator Stephen] Gammell’s visual world in the sequel than we did in the first movie.”
Ovredal also helmed “Trollhunter” and “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” while his new film “Mortal” has just opened.
