In an article with Rue Morgue, Sandy King confirmed that her husband, John Carpenter would direct the pilot episode of Tales for a Halloween Night. As we reported back in July, the duo will be adapting the series for television.
On others who would helm the episodes following him, she said, “And then we’ll hopefully bring on some great horror directors—and just great directors—so that it’ll be a high-end show. We want anything that has our brand associated with it to be a satisfying experience for readers, watchers, whatever we’re doing.”
Tales has been published since November 2015 with its first volume spanning 96 pages, followed by the second in October 2016 and was 200 pages long.
After publishing most recently the third 184-page-volume in the series, King and her Carpenter signed the TV deal just this month.
As for which company picked up the adaptation, King said, “We signed the deal with UCP [Universal Cable Productions] and Syfy to do Tales for a Halloween Night, and we’re getting ready to put that together.”
Although their plans are to bring the same anthology format from the comic series to the small screen, she said they do not intend the show to be direct adaptations of the material.
“The idea behind the books is that you can have an evening of reading short scary stories, none of which are alike, and they’re all the different faces of horror,” she said. “There are ghost stories, there are sea-monster stories, there are cursed rings; there’s intellectual horror and bugs, and all sorts of things.”
Married since 1990, King and Carpenter have worked together on several of the films he’s directed, including In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned, Vampires and Ghosts of Mars with her as producer. She was the script supervisor for Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness and They Live. On Live she was also associate producer.
King said she and her husband’s work are bound to fare well on the small screen.
“So now, the big challenge is to make it something that’s special in the marketplace. It’s one thing to make the sale and have a deal, but now we’re holding out for, ‘OK, but what’s going to make this something that delivers for fans?’ Because one thing that I think sometimes fails in the implementation is remembering the audience,” she said. “We’re also that audience, and sometimes executives aren’t. Now, I believe TV is a friendlier space, right now, for real creative, out-of-the-box thinking. Feature films are less daring these days, so TV is currently a very interesting place to be.”
According to King, Tales Volume 4 the comic is already in the works.
Check back soon for more on the TV adaptation of Tales for a Halloween Night!
For more on Halloween, click here.
