Books: What is Stopping Disney from Remaking Something Wicked This Way Comes?

I’ve been curious for years wondering what rights Disney owns to Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes that is preventing a remake of the film. I can assume some elements of the book – the ones that made it on screen, as well as scenes that they created wholesale during the near one-year delay after tossing director Jack Clayton’s cut out (also gone was the original editor –though he does get a screen credit- and the movies score, done by French composer Georges Delerue) are part of the reason. 

During filming, two differing visions emerged for the film, one where Bradbury and Clayton were trying to stay as faithful to the novel as possible, while Disney wanted to make a more accessible and family friendly film. Furthermore, Bradbury and Clayton fell out during production after Bradbury discovered that Clayton had hired writer John Mortimer to do an uncredited revision of Bradbury's screenplay at the studio's insistence. 

Disney spent an additional $5 million on re-filming, re-editing, and re-scoring the picture, and new editor Barry Gordon was required to make a number of changes to Clayton and Nelson's original cut, removing several major special-effects scenes, and incorporating the new material (directed by Leo Dyer), including a new spoken prologue, narrated by Arthur Hill. 

The original themes of Bradbury's novel, the suggestion of menace, the autumn atmosphere of an American Midwest township and the human relationships between characters that attracted Clayton escaped preview audiences completely, with Clayton heavily criticized. New special effects sequences were shot and a hastily composed new score by composer James Horner replaced Delerue's original music. Initial test screenings did not fare well with audiences, and Disney re-commissioned Bradbury to write an opening narration sequence and new ending. It made only about $8 million on what now was a $20 million budgeted film. 

Not knowing how copyright really works, I’m guessing Disney could remake the film, but it would have to be one that hews closer to the novel, if only because there are probably certain elements, such as character traits and other situations in the re-worked screenplay that can be credited to John Mortimer. For Disney, probably, dealing with his Estate is not worth the time, effort, or costs. The same could be said of the Bradbury Estate, depending on what was put in the original contacts.

Which means keeping with the dark fantasy themes Bradbury wrote about – because, understand this, the book was never written for kids, but for adults who remember their youths a certain way, especially when the autumn people came. Maybe that’s why it’s been twelve years since it was announced a remake was in the works with Seth Grahame-Smith writing the script and to make his feature film debut as director. His take adheres to the book, and not the mish-mash of the 1983 version.

Disney is Disney. It’s seen mostly as manufacturer of kids and other family-friendly programming. And while between 1984 and 2016, they did have Touchstone Pictures, their more adult raft, it still found controversy with the content from certain conservative groups who were critical that a family-friendly studio should be releasing PG-13 and R rated films,

 

TV's Golden Age of Made-for-TV Horror Movies V: 'Salem's Lot

 

Another example of classic 1970s TV movie-of-the-week was ‘Salem’s Lot, which aired as a two-part film on November 17th and 24th 1979. 

After Warner Bros. acquired the rights to the Stephen King book, the studio sought to turn the 400+page novel into a feature film, while still remaining faithful to the source material. However, producer Stirling Silliphant, screenwriter Robert Getchell, and writer/director Larry Cohen all contributed screenplays, but all found it difficult to keep a screenplay at reasonable length. 

Eventually, the project was turned over to Warner Bros. Television and producer Richard Kobritz. He decided that the best way to keep the spirit of the book without losing too much was to turn it into miniseries. Writer Paul Monash was contracted to write the teleplay. Monash was familiar with writing about small towns (he worked on the 1960s soap Peyton Place), and he previously produced the 1976 adaptation of King's novel Carrie. 

Meanwhile, Tobe Hooper leapt to fame with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). He combined elements from a story he wrote about isolation and darkness with the inspiration of graphic news coverage of violence, with his belief that people were the true monsters being a key element for the film. It was a screening of Massacre that led producer Richard Kobritz to hire him as a director – the biggest budget Hooper had yet had at $4 million. The film differed from the source material (particularly with the violence and graphic scenes) in order to meet broadcast standards of the era. Hooper described it as 'very spooky - it suggests things and always has the overtone of the grave. It affects you differently than my other horror films. It's more soft-shelled...it has atmosphere which creates something you cannot escape - the reminder that our time is limited and all the accoutrements that go with it, such as the visuals.' 

The original broadcast reviews for ‘Salem's Lot were largely positive, with critics praising the miniseries’ atmosphere, cinematography, Hooper's direction, and excellent scares. The casting was spot on, especially with a charismatic performance from James Mason. But David Soul, Bonnie Bedelia, young Lance Kerwin, some familiar character actors like Lew Ayers Elisha Cook, Jr., George Dzundza, Julie Cobb, Ed Flanders, Kenneth McMillian, and Geoffrey Lewis fill out a great cast for a horror movie. 

A loose sequel called Return to ‘Salem’s Lot was released in 1987. In 2004, TNT released a remake, also a three-hour, two-part miniseries, starring Rob Lowe as Ben Mears. Then in 2021 Epix launched the series Chapelwaite, starring Adrien Brody and Emily Hampshire and is loosely based on the short story Jerusalem’s Lot (from the King short-story collection Night Shift) and serves as a sort of prequel to ‘Salem’s Lot set in the 19th century. Finally, a new theatrical version from New Line Cinema, was announced in April 2019, with Gary Dauberman set to write and direct, and James Wan attached to produce. Filming began in September 2021 and starred Lewis Pullman and Alfre Woodard. The film was originally scheduled to be released in cinemas in September 2022, but was pushed back to April 2023, before being pulled from Warner Bros. release schedule indefinitely. The original 3-hour version was edited down to less than two hours and premiered directly on Max in October 2024. 

Maybe because King’s book was released in 1975, and this adaptation came only four years later, in the last months of what was a tumultuous decade, the movie unintentially tapped into (along with the rest of the Made For TV horror films that came out of the era) some sort of the uneasiness of that chaotic period. It was forcing people to always be looking over their shoulder, perhaps looking for something sinister. I think the later productions are all missing that something that made the 1979 production –even if it is a bit dated- such a masterclass in terror. It brought more fresh blood and lingering frights that is missing from those newer takes. I mean who cannot forget watching child vampire Danny Click scratching and floating outside his brothers’ window demanding to be let in. 

The stuff of nightmares there.

 

TV's Golden Age of Made-for-TV Horror Movies IV: Trilogy of Terror

Another example of classic 1970s TV movie-of-the-week was Trilogy of Terror, which aired as an ABC Movie of the Week on March 4, 1975. It features three segments, each based on unrelated short stories by Richard Matheson and all directed by Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis. Karen Black stars in all three, playing four different roles. Black initially turned down the project, but reconsidered when her then-husband, Robert Burton, was cast in the first segment. However, she also sort of regretted the doing it later on, saying the film led to her being typecasting in a genre that forced her to accept roles in B-grade horror films. "I think this little movie took my life and put it on a path that it didn't even belong in.” 

The first, Julie, is a story follows a college professor who seeks excitement with her students; the second, Millicent and Therese, is about twin sisters who have a bizarre relationship. These two segments were adapted by William F. Nolan (a prolific science fiction novelist and writer). The third -and most remembered- is called Amelia and was adapted by Matheson himself, and focuses on a woman terrorized by a Zuni fetish doll in her apartment. 

To be honest, the other tales have their own charms, and the movie probably works because having Black star in all three gives the film cohesion that other anthologies sort of lack, but they can be easily skipped. But it’s Amelia that scared the crap out of twelve year-old me back in 1975. This was truly a gem of TV-horror, with a ferocious, realistic monster not very seen often during that era. It’s an iconic design that can do so much, and it’s pretty easy to see why it has such a lasting appeal. 

Funny, years later, when I was older, I realized what a simple story it is, but it retains its creepiness, as well as its nifty ending. As far as TV-horror goes, this is as good as it gets.

 

TV's Golden Age of Made-for-TV Horror Movies III: Gargoyles

Another example of classic 1970s TV movie-of-the-week was Gargoyles. The story involves an anthropologist/paleontologist and his daughter (Cornel Wilde and Jennifer Salt), while travelling through the southwestern U.S., stumble upon a colony of living, breathing gargoyles. It originally aired, November 21, 1972 for the CBS series The New CBS Tuesday Night Movies. 

Written by Stephen and Elinor Karpf and directed by prolific TV director Bill F. Norton, Gargoyles is a sort of throwback 1950s atomic monster flick, where ignorant townsfolk refuse to believe meddling outsiders or teenagers trying to warn them of strange goings-on afoot in their sleepy little boondocks. Still, what is unusual here is, the creatures are presented as far from unsympathetic light, and boasting a clearly defined culture and sense of purpose. So the real stars of this TV movie were Gargoyles, as director Norton uses the darkness of location night filming very effectively: only giving the audience fleeting moments of atmosphere and moodiness that breaks through some of the more pedestrian aspects that include police chases and some clunky dialogue choices. The gargoyles are shot in slow motion, and when they speak, their voices are electronically treated to create a further sense of eeriness. 

Beyond this, veteran Dark Shadows actress Grayson Hall is a hoot, mainly for her sometimes shrill and often quirky performance as Mrs. Parks –a role she played completely and undeniably straight. The lead Gargoyle is played with commanding appeal by Bernie Casey, even if his voice was dubbed by Vic Perrin. Scott Glenn pops up in a supporting role. 

This was also the first Hollywood job for Stan Winston, who a year later formed his Stan Winston Studios. For the make-up work and mechanical effects (those gargoyles fly) here, he shared the 1973 Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. 

Watching it today (Youtube), on a modern TV, the costumes don’t look that great, but the make-up holds up and it’s worth a watch – a freaky delight during the Halloween season.

 

TV's Golden Age of Made-for-TV Horror Movies II: The Night Stalker

Another example of classic 1970s TV movie-of-the-week was The Night Stalker. When ABC aired the film originally on January 11, 1972, as their ABC Movie of the Week, it garnered the highest ratings of any TV film at that time. 

The plot concerns a series of murders plaguing the Las Vegas Strip. All of the victims had their bodies drained of blood. Carl Kolchak, a veteran reporter who has been fired from newspapers across the country due to his tenacious and unprofessional approach, thinks the killer believes himself to be a vampire. His managing editor, Tony Vincenzo, refuses to run the story under the vampire angle without proof, arguing it could cause a panic and soil the paper's reputation. But of course, there is a real vampire in Vegas and Kolchak is –seemly- the only one that believes it. 

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey (a veteran of theatrical and television films), who shot the film over 12 days, with an adaption done by Richard Matheson, and produced by Dan Curtis (best known at the time for Dark Shadows), The Night Stalker became the highest-rated original television film on US television, earning a 33.2 rating and 48 share. The television film did so well that it was released overseas as a theatrical film. It inspired a sequel television film titled The Night Strangler, which aired on January 16, 1973. A third film was in the works, when ABC decided to turn the film series into a TV series. And that’s when things got complicated. 

It seems neither ABC nor Universal had obtained Carl Kolchak creator Jeff Rice's permission to use the characters and situations as TV series and so he sued the studio.  The suit was resolved shortly before the series aired in the fall 1974 season.  ABC maintained ownership of the two movies, the rights to the main character –Carl Kolchak (as well as the short lived 2005 reboot), Universal Studios held the rights to all twenty episodes of the weekly series. Meanwhile, Jeff Rice (1944 – 2015) retained the literary and publishing rights to the original written Kolchak works and The Kolchak Papers. Rice also received an on-screen credit as series creator, and after some negotiation, McGavin agreed to return as Kolchak and also serve as the series' executive producer, though he was never credited as such (and something that irked him). Simon Oakland also returned. 

But basically the TV movies and TV series exist in two separate universes. Which meant the series could not reference the previous films in anyway, and side characters played by Carol Lynley in The Night Stalker and Jo Ann Pflug in The Night Strangler were never mentioned. However, the series did get away with doing a sequel episode to The Night Stalker. In The Vampire, an overlooked victim of the vampire Janos Skorzeny (not mentioned by name, but subtlety suggested) from Las Vegas named Catherine Rawlins, who makes her way to Los Angeles and begins killing anew. 

Beyond the legal woes, the series was plagued with problems from the start, including budgetary issues and McGavin constantly struggling with the series' producer Cy Chermak over the direction. The show's ratings were mediocre and McGavin was growing dissatisfied, even as he found himself rewriting scripts and doing much of the work of a producer, but without getting either the full credit or the full compensation of one. McGavin had been unhappy with what he felt was the show's "monster of the week" direction, and an exhausting filming schedule. He asked to be released from his contract with two episodes remaining to be filmed, which the network granted in light of the show's dwindling ratings. The series was soon cancelled.

As an addendum, the series gave the world a multiple Emmy winning writer David Chase (The Sapranos), who started his career in Hollywood as a story editor for the series, as well has launching the careers of Back to the Future writer Bob Gale and writer and Oscar winning director Robert Zemeckis, who sold their first story to the series, the late season entry Chopper.