Warner Bros. Bringing Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Halloween Tree’ to Life

Warner Bros. Pictures is set to adapt Ray Bradbury’s 1972 fantasy novel The Halloween Tree into a new live action feature film.

Deadline reports that Will Dunn is writing the screenplay for the feature film adaptation.

The book follows the story of Tom and his seven best friends, who are trick or treating in their small town on Halloween night when they discover that a ninth friend, Pipkin, has been abducted by a demon from the Land of the Dead. Tom and his other friends then team up with a mysterious figure named Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud to go rescue Pipkin.

On their journey, they travel across time and space, with stops in ancient Egypt, Notre Dame Cathedral in medieval Paris, and the Day of the Dead in Mexico, among others, learning the origins of Samhain (aka Halloween) itself and exploring the role that fear has played in shaping civilization along the way.

The Halloween Tree’s branches are heavily loaded with jack-o’-lanterns, as it serves as a metaphor for the historical convergence of these various traditions.

The original book is illustrated by artist Joe Mugnaini, one of Bradbury’s many collaborators over the years.

Bradbury himself wrote and narrated the 1993 Hanna-Barbera feature-length animated film version of The Halloween Tree, which won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program.

We will obviously be following this one closely as the project continues to develop.

You can see the book’s original first edition cover and the 1993 animated film’s poster below.

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