Last January Neil Gaiman announced on the Today Show that director Neil Jordan (The Brave One, The Crying Game) would be adapting and directing a big screen adaptation of Gaiman’s Newbery Medal-winning The Graveyard Book (see “Neil Jordan to Direct The Graveyard Book”).  But even with new box office records falling nearly every day, it isn’t easy to get financing deals in place for movie projects, even those with excellent pedigrees.  

In these tough economic times consolidation and cost-cutting are the chief watchwords in Tinseltown.  The Graveyard Book project, which was set up a Miramax, was just one of many film projects that fell victim to studio cost slashing.  After Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein left Disney to found the Weinstein Company in 2005, the "mouse house" assumed control of Miramax, and last October Disney announced a 70% reduction in the Miramax workforce and cut the number of Miramax releases from 8 films per year to just 3.

Gaiman explained to Geoff Boucher of the L.A. Times that the project “was all put together over at Miramax Films. The people there had a long, great relationship with Neil Jordan and it was all set up and ready to go, and then Miramax was more or less erased from existence.”

But Gaiman also feels that there is a chance that the project may be resurrected, telling Boucher, “But it looks like almost all the pieces are on the table again. They have a studio, they have a distributor and they are putting stuff together and I’m not allowed to say anything else.”  Stay tuned for further developments, but don’t expect to see a version of The Graveyard Book opening at the local multiplex anytime soon.