The Graveyard Book Graphic Adaptation Volume 1 partial cover
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Disney has Paused Neil Gaiman’s THE GRAVEYARD BOOK Adaptation in Light of Sexual Assault Allegations

Disney announced the adaptation is "paused," after five women have come forward with sexual assault allegations against Neil Gaiman.

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cover of the first volume of The Graveyard Book graphic novel
The graphic novel adaptation of The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman’s 2008 novel The Graveyard Book was picked up for a stop motion adaptation at Pixar in 2012, to be directed by Henry Selick, the director of Coraline. After 18 months working on it, though, Selick dropped the project, and so did Pixar. After that, a series of directors were associated with the adaptation at Disney, but they each walked away at around that same 18 month mark, starting over with a new director and a new script.

Now, Disney has officially announced the Graveyard Book adaptation is “paused,” after five women have come forward with sexual assault allegations against Neil Gaiman. It was set to be directed by Marc Forster, who signed onto the project in 2022 alongside co-producer Renée Wolfe and writer David Magee.

Netflix has also announced Dead Boy Detectives, based on a comics series by Neil Gaiman, will not be getting a second season.

Given the fact that there was no cast attached to the current adaptation of The Graveyard Book and it’s been stuck in adaptation purgatory for over a decade, it’s hard to know if the adaptation would have been made regardless of the allegations against Gaiman, though they certainly would contribute to the decision. Officially, the project is not cancelled, just “paused,” but it’s hard to imagine that Disney will be eager to unpause it any time soon.

You can read more about this on IndieWire.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.

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