TNT hasn’t given up on its Tales From the Crypt revival – and neither should we.
That’s according to Turner Entertainment’s chief creative officer Kevin Reilly, who touched on the beleaguered project during a recent interview with Deadline. Both Reilly and TNT’s top brass still have their eye on the IP, it seems, but are still waiting for the legal drama to blow over before making another approach to land the rights. Alas, a Tales From the Crypt reboot is still unlikely, as the EC Comics property has been sold to multiple producers and creators since its inception, and while providing a status report to Deadline, Kevin Reilly made no bones about his frustration.
It’s been fun with lawyers, it’s been really fun. We did not know from the get-go or else we would not have announced it and made a big deal out of it. But in fact there were rights. It is among the most—if not the most—complicated rights structure I’ve ever seen in my career, and we had no idea as we got into it. It became a nightmare. So we said, ‘Fine.’ If and when this gets cleaned up, we’ll revisit.
That’s a pretty big ‘if’. Long before legal red tape sentenced TNT’s proposed reboot to an early grave, Tales From the Crypt was angled as the cornerstone of the network’s horror block, where it would’ve been joined by Creatures and the seasonal anthology series, Time of Death. However, soon after the project ground to a halt, TNT struck up a deal with Ridley Scott (Alien: Covenant) for a new slate of programming, one which will presumably begin in 2018.
For what it’s worth, the proposed Tales From the Crypt redo would’ve been hosted by “a newly reinvented Crypt Keeper” across its ten-part season. Plans were in place for M. Night Shyamalan (Glass) to serve as executive producer, which is all the more disappointing when you consider the director’s recent return to form.
Tales From the Crypt was formally sentenced to the back-burner over at TNT two months ago, but this latest update from Reilly leads us to believe that there’s still a chance for the cult horror saga to make a return. Assuming the stars align, and the Crypt Keeper haunts the small screen once more, what would you like to see from the revival? Let us know via the comments section.
