Disney has reportedly pumped the breaks on its plans to adapt Neil Gaiman's 2008 YA novel The Graveyard Book, Deadline reports, and while the studio hasn't formally commented on the decision, it's not hard to read the writing on the walls: Nobody at the company is, presumably, anxious to put Gaiman's name up on movie posters while he's facing a series of sexual misconduct allegations, which broke out against the author over the summer.
Deadline, reporting on off-the-record comments, says that the allegations—from five different women—weren't the sole factor on getting the film adaptation shelved, but they certainly sound like the final nail in the coffin for an adaptation that's now been more than a decade in the very-troubled making.
Disney has been trying to get a film version of Gaiman's book, which won the Newberry Award back in the day, since pretty much the moment it came out. Past directors attached to the project have included Coraline's Henry Selick and Ron Howard; the film was last reported to be in the hands of Christopher Robin and Monster's Ball director Marc Forster, but that was back in 2022. Gaiman has said he has no involvement with the film.
News of the film getting "paused" comes not long after another setback for Gaiman adaptation plans: Dead Boy Detectives was canceled last week at Netflix, after just a single season on the streamer. The series was presented as a spin-off of the TV adaptation of Gaiman's Sandman, which is set to return for a second season at an undetermined—but probably 2025-based—date. Nobody said at the time whether the Dead Boy cancellation could be attributed to the allegations, with the show having been dumped on a Friday night, as one does in TV executive land—although we can't imagine the accusations helped keep Gaiman's latest TV show on the air.
