It looks like Disney is giving Seth Grahame-Smith the ability to have his directorial debut as he’ll be helming the remake of Ray Bradbury’s ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. It just so happens that this novel was Grahame-Smith’s favorite as a child. In fact, he’s excited to create something he loved as a kid and give it a film treatment that he feels will be closer to the source material. The entertaining side note about that is that Ray Bradbury himself penned the script for the original film.

In the novel we are told the story of a traveling carnival who is run by the mysterious Mr. Dark. While a carnival itself is a perfect place to make something creepym, this story is enhanced by offering the dreams of the residents of a small town to them, for a price. They only have to exchange their very souls for that which they want most.

Here’s a synopsis of the book:

The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. The shrill siren song of a calliope beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes. . .and the stuff of nightmare.

The original film came out in 1983 and Grahame-Smith feels there is a lot that can be done to not only modernize the tale but properly tell the original story.

“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. 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.”

With Grahame-Smith busy finishing up writing the ‘Beetlejuice’ sequel, ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ isn’t something we’ll probably hear much about  for awhile as Disney has not hired someone to write the script as of yet. I’m always on the fence on remakes but having read the book and seen the movie myself, I can easily see where another film could be done to tell this story.

If you have read the book and seen the film are you in agreement that this is a tale that could be given a new treatment? Share your thoughts below!

Source: Deadline.