John August Latest Writer To Adapt 'Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark' Movie

CBS Films has been trying to crack the popular children's book series, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, for a while. Originally, they brought on Saw writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton to pen a script. Evidently their take wasn't what the company wanted. CBS has now gone back to square one and hired a writer who knows a little something about blending the tones that made these books so popular. John August, writer of Go, Charlie's Angels, Big Fish, Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie, has been hired to write a new script for the scary series of short stories. Read more about the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark movie below.

Deadline broke the news of August coming aboard the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark movie.

The series, which was originally written by Alvin Schwartz, began in 1981 with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. That lead to a sequel More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark in 1984 followed by Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones in 1991. The series has sold a collective seven million plus copies across the world.

According to Deadline, August is going directly to the source material for his script so it's a total rewrit  of whatever Dunstan and Melton came up with. Now, that might seem odd as the books are basically unrelated short story collections, but there are obviously smart takes on something like that. For example, Sony's 2015 Goosebumps movie turned the author into the main character, allowing all of the books to be used in various different ways. That's not to say August will go a similar route, but he's a writer who brings fresh takes to material as some prestige to the role.

Once August's script is done, a director will be hired so CBS Films seems pretty high on this take on the material, wahtever it is. Are you excited for a Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark movie.