Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” Winds Up At Disney

Neil Gaiman’s children’s novel The Graveyard Book has been in some form of development since the book came out in 2008. The Graveyard Book is a riff on The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, but instead of being raised by animals, in this instance the infant boy (here named Nobody) whose parents are murdered is raised in a cemetery by the ghosts and vampire who reside there. Back in 2010, director Neil Jordan, himself no stranger to gothic fiction as the director of Interview with the Vampire and The Company of Wolves, came on board to direct, but the deal fell through and has been in limbo ever since.

So here comes Disney to the rescue. According to Deadline, the Mouse beat out several suitors for the rights to the novel for a six figure deal. What isn’t clear is whether or not Neil Jordan is still in the mix. All that is known is that Disney production chief Sean Bailey is making this a priority for the studio. Anyone else see a stop motion adaptation like the one we got for Gaiman’s Coraline for this story too?