Back in 2017, Universal Cable Productions announced a development deal with John Carpenter and Sandy King, and soon thereafter UCP and Carpenter went into development on “Tales for a Halloween Night” for SYFY. The series was to be based on Carpenter’s award-winning graphic novel anthology of horror stories, which kicked off back in 2015.
Carpenter was intending on directing “at least” the pilot episode of the series, but we had learned the unfortunate news earlier this year that the project was dead in the water.
“SYFY wanted Tales for a Halloween Night but it quickly became evident that they just wanted the title. And I really saw a disaster on the horizon,” King told ComicBook.com in March. “So I went, ‘No, no, no. This is not a good idea.’ It was a greenlit series but if it’s not gonna be something cool for the fans and for the eventual audience, then I don’t think it’s a good idea to do it.”
“It’s dead,” King confirmed at the time. “I think we have a pretty good idea what our fans want to see. It doesn’t mean something can’t be done but at its core, the people we work with have to respect horror fans and respect the genre. That’s the core of it. Not just respect the fact that horror right now makes money.”
But today brings a glimmer of hope. In a new chat with ComicBook.com this week, Carpenter revealed that the series has found new life. “It’s alive at Paramount now,” he told the site.
Carpenter continued, “We’re just getting cranked up.” And when the site asked if he still planned on directing the pilot episode, Carpenter’s response was vague: “We’ll see.”
