Dark Castle is reportedly developing a ‘Thirteen Ghosts’ series after a successful pitch from the hosts behind the popular ScreamWriters Podcast: Patrick Mediate and Aaron McLane.
The deliciously campy 2001 remake of the classic William Castle horror film adopts a passionately gruesome take. Reportedly when Aaron Mclaine ran into ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ supervisor, Ashley Robinson, there was talk about doing a ‘Thirteen Ghosts’ TV series. She admitted there were currently no writers attached to it. That’s when Aaron jumped in with ‘Me and my Co-host will put together a pitch deck for you’.
Providentially Patrick has once again joined his creative partner in crime and ‘The Walking Dead’ SFX Supervisor, Aaron McLane, to discuss their process on how they successfully pitched a remake of ‘Thirteen Ghosts’ as a television series and ‘Chopping Mall’ as a feature to the studios and respective rights holders…the rest is history.
Credit: Dark Castle / Warner Bros. / Columbia PicturesThe original 1960 William Castle film ‘13 Ghosts’ is about a family that inherits a spectacular old house from an eccentric uncle. There’s just one problem: the house seems to have a dangerous secret. Trapped in their new home the family encounters powerful and vengeful entities that threaten to annihilate anyone in their path. The new ‘13 Ghosts’ series would be 13 episodes, concept art has been revealed and there is mention of the expansion of the ghost’s mythos as Aaron thinks the 2001 movie drops the ball in exploring the juicier ingredients in regards to the story. In this series, they want to explore the various origin stories, personalities, plights and fates that make this story such a fright fest to begin with, and fans are eager for more.
The ‘13 Ghosts’ was circulated as a 15-page pitch with Cyrus’s voice-over – praised by all the Walking Dead executives and later presented to Dark Castle Entertainment who referred to it as ‘A crown jewel in the library’. Images from the pitch deck have been released fans are clamouring for the show to be picked up by Sony Pictures after a sudden delay from the WGA strike.
A quote from the pitch deck in Dread Central’s article goes:
‘As follows every culture in the world has its ghost stories and this reimagining of 13 Ghosts presents an international sampling of these Supernatural Tales The ghost stories within each episode will have their own stylistic look and feel that will be explored and influenced by each individual director; this makes our goals then our ghost vignette stand out stylistically as they set out as they set the theme for each episode’
William Castle’s original film was an absolute horror masterpiece and his quirky antics have never quite been forgotten amongst his die-hard fans. Known for his gimmicks, Mediate teases to encapsulate that through an AR component to the series. Something which sounds like the original ‘13 Ghosts’ director William Castle would be playing with if he were alive today. The concept for this new technology would be to allow fans to invite the show’s ghosts into their own home, playing with the “Ghost Viewer” gimmick. A fun new addition, just as Castle would have liked it!
Mediate explains “Having Dark Castle’s support and blessing is only one part of the equation since Sony Pictures Television owns 50% of the rights. Right now the future of this being a series at all is completely in Sony’s court as we pitched to them right before the strike occurred.”
Since the strike, there are not many updates as to whether the show will finally be picked up or not. The future lies in the hands of Sony and what they decide to do with the project. However, ideas have been floating around and talk of a fan-favourite character known as The Jackal would be a major player in the ’13 Ghosts’ series, The plan is to also explore the creation of the machine that was built to restrain the various ghosts, known as the Basileus Machine, as well as the ancient book that served as the film’s Necronomicon, the Arcanum.
Mediate promises fans that this tale will pay homage and respect to William Castle’s craft. The story and will hopefully invite a new generation of fans that can appreciate the and terror poured into 13 Ghosts as a concept. Dark Castle is in full support of the project and only time will tell whether or not you will finally see the series on screens.
