If the massive success of “The Walking Dead” on AMC has proven anything, it’s that horror fare can be done right on the small screen and will find an audience, so perhaps it’s no surprise that two more shows are in the works to try and capture that same lightning in a bottle.
First up, David Cronenberg‘s 1981 head-exploding classic “Scanners” is going to the small screen. A man who knows a few things about remakes, “Piranha” and “The Hills Have Eyes” director Alexandre Aja, will executive produce and possibly direct the pilot episode. In case you’re too young to remember, the movie centered on a elite group of people known as Scanners, whose telepathic and telekinetic abilities had the power to kill. Dimension Films had picked up the rights to the movie years ago in the hopes of franchising it, and at one point David Goyer (“The Dark Knight,” “Blade“) was going to write it but now everything is being rethought for TV. Goyer is no longer involvedand the project is currently seeking a showrunner to get it moving.
Meanwhile, “Tales From The Crypt” is heading back to a cable channel on your dial. The franchise based the comic books already spawned a feature film in 1972 but perhaps more memorably, it was turned into a seven season series on HBO that lasted until 1996. The twist this time around is that unlike the anthology format of the previous series, this new show will adhere closely to the characters in the comics, placing them in a modern context with an ongoing storyline. This one is pretty far along, with a show “Bible” completed and a pitch going out to potential networks and financiers. Plenty of scares to come…
