Ron Howard to raise 'The Graveyard Book' for movie?

English author and nerd royalty Neil Gaiman’s Hugo Award Winning children’s fantasy novel The Graveyard Book (http://www.amazon.com/Graveyard-Book-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0060530944) may finally be making its way to the big screen - and courtesy Ron Howard.

The Graveyard Book was written by Gaiman after he was inspired by his son riding his bike through a graveyard. He wanted the book to be akin to Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 classic,The Jungle Book, but set in a graveyard.

The tale is of a toddler who escapes the mass murder of his family and finds a "home" in a nearby graveyard where its resident ghosts find and raise him. He acquires the nickname "Bod" which is short for "Nobody" and attains supernatural abilities such as fading, haunting and dream walking. The book is filled with adventure and will no doubt make an entertaining film.

The man who is currently in talks to direct the screen adaptation is none other than Ron Howard. Howard is no stranger to directing fantasies, such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Splash. According to an article on Latino Review the film was originally going to be directed by Henry Selick (who directed Gaiman’s imaginative stop-motion animation film Coraline).

The site states, "Previously, Selick was suppose to direct the film as a stop-motion picture, but when he parted ways with the studio, the project was dropped. The film will no longer going to be in stop-action animation, it’ll just be a regular live-action movie."

Is this a film you’d want to check out? We’ll keep you posted on when The Graveyard Book is finally going to be in your local theaters.