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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, a book that scared a generation of kids with its surprisingly frightening tales and perhaps even scarier pictures, is heading to the big screen.
CBS Films has picked up the rights and acquired an accompanying pitch by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, the duo wrote a slew of the Saw horror movies.
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Sean Daniels and Jason Brown of Sean Daniel Company are on board to produce along with Elizabeth Grave of 1212 Entertainment.
Melton and Dunstan will now write the script, which will use the horror folktale anthology as a jumping off point and incorporate some of the book’sshort stories, while concentrating on a group of kids who band together to save their town from living nightmares.
1212 initially optioned rights to the book, written by Alvin Schwartz with art by Stephen Gammell, before teaming up with Daniels, a producer on Universal’s Mummy franchise (he is also working on the reboot) and Brown.
The book was initially published in 1981 and went on to sell seven million copies. Several sequel books followed.
Roberto Grande and Joshua Long are serving as executive producers.
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CBS Films vice president Mark Ross and creative executive Alex Ginno are overseeing the project.
Melton and Dunstan are names in the scary movie set. They wrote four of the seven Saw movies (numbers IV to VII), Piranha 3D as well as an adaptation of The Outer Limits, which is in development at MGM. They also worked on Pacific Rim.
Melton and Dunstan are repped by WME, Underground’s Trevor Engelson and attorney Dave Feldman.
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