Director Neil Jordan On Adapting Neil Gaimans Graveyard Book

The director of Interview With The Vampire and The Company Of Wolves outlines his plans for the Gaiman adaptation…

CS: You’re back on for Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book – and that’s going to have loads of ghosts and ghouls…
Jordan: “ And Silas the vampire, and Miss Lupescu the werewolf, and all the graveyard creatures. It’s a rather wonderful conception, all these ghosts are terrified of one human being, and normally, it’s the total opposite, so we’ll be running through the graveyard and all the ghosts will be in a panic, like the forest animals in Bambi . I think it’s quite cool, ghosts terrified by a human being. So we’re starting to build in sequences like that.”

CS: Do you know what studio it’s going to be yet? There’s been some re-juggling on that front…
Jordan: “When Neil came to me with the book, he wanted to keep it somewhat outside of the studio system, but it’s proving difficult, because it’s an expensive movie, and movies like that are now made in 3D. We’ve got a budget, and if we can make it for $40 million, we have the financing, but if it goes over $40 million, then we’re in a bit of trouble. Movies like that are very hard to do these days. We were about to do it with Miramax, and Miramax wanted to get into doing larger films, so it was Disney, and we talked to Dick Cook, the head of Disney at that time, and we had it all set up to do that way, with the backing of a large studio, with a large release, and then Miramax collapsed, and then Dick Cook was fired from Disney, so the movie went into a bit of a hiatus. I’ve written a script, and I’ve just delivered another draft, so I hope to be starting production in the fall. I’d love to start doing it in September. We just don’t know who the studio would be at this point. I think Universal is interested in doing it. Actually, there are four different entities that want to do it, and the thing of American distribution is yet to be worked out. Movies are so bloody complicated.”

Dave is a TV and film journalist who specializes in the science fiction and fantasy genres. He's written books about film posters and post-apocalypses, alongside writing for SFX Magazine for many years.