Seth Grahame-Smith to Direct 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'

After authoring the genre mash-ups Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith has quickly made a name for himself as a screenwriter. He's worked with Tim Burton on an adaptation of 'Vampire Hunter', wrote the director's Dark Shadows plus the upcoming Beetlejuice sequel, and he's also one of the co-writers on Fox's Fantastic Four relaunch. But for his first time behind the camera, Grahame-Smith has decided to tackle Ray Bradbury's 1962 horror novel, Something Wicked this Way Comes.

Disney has hired Grahame-Smith to make his directorial debut on the film, which the studio first brought to the big screen in 1983. A writer will be hired to pen the screenplay after Grahame-Smith finishes the initial treatment. David Katzenberg will be joining him as a producer. The story centers on two 14-year-old boys who encounter the mysterious Mr. Dark, the evil proprietor of a traveling circus in their small town.

Bradbury wasn't a big fan of the movie (nor was I), feeling that it left out a lot of what made the book special. Grahame-Smith apparently agrees and will look to adapt Bradbury's novel rather than simply remake the movie...

“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,” Grahame-Smith said. “It is a classic coming of age, father-son story about the transition from childhood to adulthood and how kids can’t wait to be adults and adults romanticize their childhoods. I’m not remaking the 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.”