Credit: Inside The MagicIt’s always exciting when some of our favorite books are brought to life on the big screen. Franchises like Harry Potter, The Princess Diaries, The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Lord of the Rings brought millions of fans to the theater and generated billions of dollars. Book-to-film adaptations give fans a chance to see amazing stories in a whole new way.
Disney has always been big on the book-to-film adaptations. In fact, some of its most iconic movies have been based on books — movies like Peter Pan (1953), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Mary Poppins (1964), The Jungle Book (1967), The Little Mermaid (1989), Tangled (2010), and so many more.
Related: Surprise! Next Disney Live-Action Adaptation Announced, Everything We Know
Unfortunately, the Mouse House has been forced to put one of its major adaptations on pause after some serious sexual assault allegations were made against the original book’s author.
According to IndieWire, Disney was set to adapt Neil Gaiman’s popular graphic novel, The Graveyard Book. The book tells the story of Nobody “Bod” Owens, a young boy who is adopted by the ghosts who live in a graveyard after his family is murdered.
While growing up, Bod learns how to harness his own supernatural abilities, including Fading (invisibility), Haunting (making people feel uneasy), and Dreamwalking (controlling other people’s dreams).
Per IndieWire, Tortoise Media put out a new podcast series — Am I Broken: Survivor Stories — in which five women accused Gaiman of rape and detailed what happened to them. Several of the women said that they were in consensual relationships with Gaiman, but he raped them during the relationship.
Disney has paused its adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s “The Graveyard Book,” which had set up production offices. The move comes after five women alleged sexual assault against author Gaiman, who wrote young adult novel “The Graveyard Book” in 2008.
This summer, U.K.-based startup news outlet Tortoise Media published a podcast series with detailed accounts of claims against Gaiman by four women. A fifth woman came forward in late July on the podcast “Am I Broken: Survivor Stories.” Two women said they’d been in consensual relationships with the author, but alleged that he’d forced them into non-consensual “rough and degrading” sex. The claims referred to incidents that were years apart.
One woman named Scarlett claimed that the Coraline author raped her in 2022, just after she was hired as a nanny for her children. She accused Gaiman of engaging in “rough and degrading penetrative sexual acts with her”. She supported her claims with messages and notes that were viewed by Tortoise Media.
A second woman said that she met Gaiman in 2003 when she was just 18 years old. They began dating when she was 20 and he was 40. She claimed that Gaiman subjected her to “painful sex.” She said she did not enjoy it and did not want it, but he did not listen and forced her to do what he wanted.
Gaiman has denied the sexual assault allegations made against him — calling them “disturbing.”
Tortoise said it “understands that he believes K’s allegations are motivated by her regret over their relationship and that Scarlett was suffering from a condition associated with false memories at the time of her relationship with him,” but asserted that Gaiman’s account is “not supported by her medical records and medical history.”
In addition to denying both claims, Gaiman has also claimed that police in New Zealand did not accept his offer for help with the 2022 claim, which he believes indicates the claim is not strong. Authorities told Tortoise that they made a “number of attempts to speak to key people as part of this investigation and those efforts remain ongoing.”
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Insiders told IndieWire that the rape allegations were just one reason the project was put on indefinite pause, but they did not say what the other reasons are.
Marc Forster was attached to direct The Graveyard Book adaptation for Disney. The movie was to be produced by Forster and his partner, Renée Wolfe, with David Magee set to write the screenplay.
Do you think Disney should cancel its adaptation of The Graveyard Book? Let us know in the comments!