‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ Sequel Is Stuck in Legal Limbo
CBS Films released Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, an adaptation of the beloved children’s horror book series by Alvin Schwartz, in theaters on August 9, 2019.
While it was never positioned as a massive blockbuster, the film became a quiet box office success, earning roughly $68 million domestically and more than $104 million worldwide against a reported production budget of just $25 million.
Critics were also surprisingly receptive to the film. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark currently holds a 78% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences gave it a 72% Popcornmeter score. The film was praised for its creepy atmosphere, memorable monster designs, and how effectively it captured the feeling of classic gateway horror… scary enough to thrill younger audiences while still delivering genuine horror for longtime fans.
The film performed well enough that conversations about a sequel started almost immediately after release. Yet now, nearly seven years later, fans are still waiting for meaningful updates on Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 2. For a long time, the silence surrounding the project was confusing, but now we finally know why.
Unfortunately, the sequel has reportedly become caught up in a complex legal situation between CBS Films and EOne, two companies connected to the original film that have since shut down. Until the rights issues are untangled, the project cannot fully move forward.
Director André Øvredal, whose latest horror film Passenger opens in theaters tomorrow from Paramount Pictures, recently spoke with Slashfilm about the stalled sequel. According to Øvredal, the project is still alive, but the situation is largely out of his hands until lawyers can resolve the legal complications – and as Hollywood history has shown time and time again, those situations can take years to sort out.
“I mean, yes and no. What I can say is that it’s been stuck in a bit of a copyright ownership hell with two studios that don’t exist anymore, that produced a movie together, CBS Films and EOne, and they don’t really exist anymore,” Øvredal told the website.
“The rights spread out to two other companies, and then they have to agree to figure it out between them, and that has taken some time, but there is movement. We do have conversations about it once every couple of months, and there is currently some movement, I’m gathering. But it becomes about legal departments and not about creatives, because we have a story that I love that is just ready to go whenever somebody decides, ‘I own the movie, let’s go make it.'”
For now, fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark may simply have to remain patient and hope the legal issues are eventually resolved so the sequel can finally move forward.
In the film, a group of young teens must solve the mystery surrounding sudden and macabre deaths in their small town.
“It’s 1968 in America. Change is blowing in the wind…but seemingly far removed from the unrest in the cities is the small town of Mill Valley where for generations, the shadow of the Bellows family has loomed large. It is in their mansion on the edge of town that Sarah, a young girl with horrible secrets, turned her tortured life into a series of scary stories, written in a book that has transcended time—stories that have a way of becoming all too real for a group of teenagers who discover Sarah’s terrifying tome.”
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark stars Zoe Colletti (Boo, Bitch), Michael Garza (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1), Gabriel Rush (Moonrise Kingdom), Austin Abrams (Euphoria), Dean Norris (Breaking Bad), Kathleen Pollard (Channel Zero), Gil Bellows (The Shawshank Redemption), Lorraine Toussaint (Orange Is the New Black), Austin Zajur (Fist Fight), and Natalie Ganzhorn (Make It Pop).
The screenplay was written by Daniel Hageman and Kevin Hageman (The Lego Movie) alongside Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Frankenstein, Blade 2).
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