Famed director Tim Burton and Seth Grahme-Smith are slated to team up on a stop-motion monster film.
Lately, Grahme-Smith has been making a bit of a name for himself as a writer of quirky monster films. Most know him as the author of the two parody novels, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the film adaptations for which are soon to be released for the former, and in development for the latter.
He’s also one of the draft writers for the upcoming Dark Shadows, an adaptation of an old television serial about a cursed family, and is in talks to adapt his most recent novel Unholy Night to film.
Tim Burton has obviously been in the game much longer with a long history of directing such quirky films. Indeed, Beetlejuice, Edward Scisorhands, Nightmare before Christmas, are all classics of a genre which some would argue Burton himself had a hand in creating.
Burton is currently finishing up post-production on Frankenweenie and Dark Shadows. Meanwhile, Grahme-Smith is scheduled to write the sequel to Beetlejuice, though Burton is not attached to the picture currently, and now the two will be working together right from development on Night of the Living.
“‘Night of the Living’ is an idea I have had around for years that I’m doing with Tim Burton,” Grahme-Smith told The Hollywood Reporter. “When we were shooting ‘Dark Shadows’ last year I worked up the nerve to tell Tim about it because I always thought it would make a good movie. When I saw what he had done with ‘Frankenweenie’ and ‘Corpse Bride’, it always struck me as a great idea for that form. I’m writing it at Warner’s for him.”
It seems like their careers have been nearly destined to cross one another, and it appears to be a good match. If Night of the Living is successful, perhaps we can expect more collaboration from the pair in the future. Maybe Grahme-Smith would even be able to convince Burton to direct his Beetlejuice sequel, though that may be somewhat of a pipe-dream.
We have no details for Night of the Living, other than the title, and that it will be stop-motion in the vein of Frankenweenie. No production or release dates have been announced for the film as of yet.
