A Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick is trying his hand at live-action again and the project sounds like it’s tailor-made for him.
Selick will direct A Tale Dark & Grimm, a family-friendly film based on the children’s novel by Adam Gidwitz. The story follows “two children who run away from their own dark fairy tale in hopes of finding a happier life, but they end up landing in eight other terrible tales.” I’m surprised Gidwitz didn’t title his book Henry Selick’s A Tale Dark & Grimm.
But seriously, the story sounds right up Selick’s alley. Perhaps the most surprising news here is that the film will be live-action. Though he toyed with it in James And The Giant Peach, his only true live-action film was 2001’s Monkeybone, which wasn’t very good. At all. Even that film wasn’t entirely live-action, relying on a lot of stop-motion animation. I will guess that A Tale Dark & Grimm will have at least some animation in it. It seems like it would lend to the story well.
I give him a hard time about Monkeybone (seriously, that film) but Selick is pretty consistent when he’s given the right material. The fact is that he’s directed two animated classics in his career (Nightmare and Coraline, both with major assists from their respective creators of course) and news of a new film from him should bring cheers and not constant reminders of his one major failure.
It’s Monkeybone, by the way. Monkeybone is his one major failure.