From PP&Z To Bradbury
The new Disney adaptation of the 1962 Ray Bradbury classic, Something Wicked This Way Comes (1999 hardcover reissue, Harper Voyager), has just completed the next step in becoming reality, with the hiring of a screenwriter.
It is set to be directed by first-timer Seth Grahame-Smith, who, as an author, has seen other directors adapt two of his books, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, to midlling success and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which languished in development for years until it finally began filming in September (see Entertainment Weekly‘s “first look”).
When the Bradbury project was first announced earlier this year, Grahame-Smith told Deadline, “I have been so crazy about this book, and it was such a formative title in my life that I actually wrote a piece on NPR about why it is so important for young males to read,”
Disney has adapted it before, into a 1983 movie, starring Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Diane Ladd and Pam Grier. Grahame-Smith said he doesn’t intend to remake that movie, “I want the haunted atmosphere that makes the book so chilling, and I want to reinstate some of the classic scenes from the book that were missing from the ’83 film.”