Disney buries the movie ‘Coraline’ fans have been waiting for amid Neil Gaiman sexual assault allegations

2024 marks the 15-year anniversary of Coraline, the stop-motion animation supposedly for children but creepy enough to linger well into adulthood (those buttons will haunt me forever). 

While fans of the cult classic film might’ve used the anniversary as a cause for celebration, fresh news out of Disney has outlined how the cinematic universe of Neil Gaiman — who authored the 2002 book upon which Coraline is based — is coming to a screeching halt. 

According to IndieWire, Disney has paused production on an adaptation of another Gaiman novel, The Graveyard Book, in light of sexual assault allegations levelled against the author earlier this year. News of the suspended production comes despite the film already having set up production offices, and despite having Finding Neverland’s Marc Forster attached to direct. 

This summer, four women came forward with allegations of assault perpetrated by Gaiman in a podcast by the news outlet Tortious Media, with a fifth accuser making claims against the author in late-July. The claims refer to incidents that were years apart, with two of the women alleging they were in consensual relationships with Gaiman but had been forced into non-consensual sex. One woman also claimed to have signed a non-disclosure agreement following her experience with Gaiman.

Gaiman, who also authored The Sandman graphic novels as well as co-creating the characters in Netflix’s now-cancelled Dead Boy Detectives, has denied all the allegations, and in July described them as “disturbing.” It has been reported that The Graveyard Book has not been scrapped entirely, but rather paused due to multiple factors, including the allegations.

The Graveyard Book was published in 2008, and follows a young boy who is raised by ghosts following his family’s murder. The film adaptation of the book — which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2009 — had not yet announced a cast, but we do know Coraline director Henry Sellick was involved in the project since Disney acquired the film rights in 2012.  

Meanwhile, David Medgee — who penned Life of Pi and 2023’s The Little Mermaid reboot — was on board as the screenwriter. The extent of Gaiman’s involvement in The Graveyard Book adaptation was minimal, at least according to a Tumblr post shared by the author in 2022. “You know everything I know,” Gaiman wrote in response to a fan asking for an update on the film. 

“And no, no control or say. Fingers crossed that if they make it, it’s good.” Elsewhere in the Gaiman universe, rumors were swirling earlier this year that Coraline — which received a theatrical re-run in celebration of its 15-year anniversary — would be receiving a sequel, though this speculation was quickly debunked.