It kind of sucks to be Henry Selick right now, doesn't it? After earning much-deserved acclaim for Coraline a few years ago, he spent the years since developing a dark animated film called Shadow King for Disney. But Disney turned on it for a number of reasons, and when no studio would pick it up, the project just sort of died. But at the very least, Selick had the eagerly anticipated adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which he planned to stop-motion animate for the studio soon. Now he doesn't even have that.
It seems all the upheaval over at Disney has led to them parting ways with Selick, and now Ron Howard is in talks to direct the picture, which is now being envisioned as a live-action feature. Oof. Gaiman's award-winning story is basically a twisted take on The Jungle Book, following a boy who grows up in a graveyard full of ghouls and ghosts. It's great, award-winning stuff, and would have been perfect for Selick. Not so sure about Howard, though. [THR]
