A few weeks after D23, current events seem to be pushing Disney to reconsider a project that is close to the hearts of fans, and which could well be the most promising that the studio has in store. We'll tell you everything…
This Disney project in the hot seat
We saw it throughout D23, Disney's biannual big event, the studio with the big ears has many projects up its sleeve. But one of them has not yet been revealed, and for good reason: it is in the early stages of pre-production. It is an adaptation of The Graveyard Book, or in French The Strange Life of Nobody Owens, a novel for young people written by the great British writer Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Coraline, American Gods). Published in 2008 in England, the novel is a gothic adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. It tells the adventures of Nobody Owens, a young boy whose family was murdered by The Jack, a terrifying assassin belonging to a secret brotherhood. He manages to escape by entering a cemetery haunted by ghosts and is adopted by two of them, the Owens couple, who entrust his education to a vampire, Silas. But Nobody Owens cannot stay in the cemetery forever.
Rewarded of the Hugo Award for best novel,The Strange Life of Nobody Owensis certainly one of the greatest masterpieces of the British novelist, and is a monument of the revival of Gothic culture. For several years, the Disney studio has been aiming to adapt it for the cinema. A first adaptation had been envisaged under the direction of the brilliant Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. The director specializing in stop-motion recently announced his desire to adapt another film, also inspired by a novel by Neil Gaiman. Finally, the Disney studio entrusted the direction of the project to Marc Forster, known among others for Neverland and World War Z.
But we learned today in the columns of IndieWire that the recent accusations of sexual assault published in a British tabloid against Neil Gaiman have pushed the Disney studio to put the adaptation project of The Odd Life of Nobody Owens on hold. While the American media assures that the project has not yet been abandoned, it is nevertheless in the hot seat. Neil Gaiman, whose work is increasingly being adapted by Hollywood, has not really been in the public eye since the outbreak of the affair. Netflix recently announced the cancellation of the series Dead Boys Detectives, a spin-off of The Sandman, after just one season, which nevertheless received a warm welcome from audiences and critics.