Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Sequel Trapped in Copyright Limbo

Here we go again: another promising horror sequel trapped in a corporate maze. It’s been over six years since André Øvredal (that’s the bloke behind the camera) and Guillermo del Toro (producer, Gothic fairy tale enthusiast) said they’d have another crack at bringing Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark back to cinemas. That was back before the pandemic—a phrase we’ve all grown tired of—and, well, pretty much everything has gone wrong since.

Quick Refresher: What Was the First Film About?

If your memory’s a bit foggy: Picture 1968, small-town America, and a bunch of teens stumbling upon the haunted mansion of the Bellows family outside Mill Valley. There’s Sarah, a girl with her own grim secrets, who literally writes her trauma into a book of scary stories—which, naturally, don’t stay on the page for long. Cue all sorts of folk-horror weirdness and supernatural chaos.

Main cast included Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, Lorraine Toussaint, Austin Zajur, and Natalie Ganzhorn. It performed well at the box office—about $106 million globally off a $25 million budget. Not too shabby for a film drawn from campfire stories.

The Sequel Is Written… and Completely Stuck

The script for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 2 is already done, courtesy of Dan and Kevin Hageman (the same duo from the first film), working from a story idea by del Toro himself. Øvredal has repeatedly said they’re not twiddling their thumbs—the script exists, and he’s keen, but progress has slowed to a crawl. Between the pandemic, actors’ strikes, and other directing gigs, it’s not shocking there were delays. But none of that is the real killer here.

Why the Copyright Headache?

The real issue is pure modern Hollywood: tangled ownership and legal red tape. Here’s the corporate mess that killed the momentum:

• The first film was financed by eOne and CBS Films, with Lionsgate distributing.
• Hasbro swooped in and bought eOne in 2019, then flipped it in 2022.
• CBS Films folded not long after, following some creative 'restructuring' at CBS.
• Result: One company no longer exists, the other’s swapped hands, and now there are at least two different entities who both claim a piece of the pie.

As Øvredal told Slash Film (and here’s a quote worth highlighting):

"The rights spread out to two other companies, and then they have to agree to figure it out between them, and that has taken some time, but there is movement. We do have conversations about it once every couple of months, and there is currently some movement, I’m gathering. But it becomes about legal departments and not about creatives, because we have a story that I love that is just ready to go whenever somebody decides, 'I own the movie, let’s go make it.'"

So, to put it politely: the film’s not getting made unless a cluster of lawyers and studio execs finally agree whose legal toy this actually is. Until then, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 2 will just keep gathering dust, script and all.