‘Are You Afraid of the Dark?’ to Be Revived as TV Miniseries

All That is not the only classic ’90s Nickelodeon show being revived. The network plans on bringing back horror anthology series Are You Afraid of the Dark? to coincide with the film based on the show.

The new miniseries will feature new members of the Midnight Society gathering around a campfire to tell new scary stories. Nickelodeon did not announce when the new show will debut, but said it will “coincide” with the movie.

The Are You Afraid of the Dark? movie will be released on Oct. 4, 2018. The plot remains unknown, but it was directed by D.J. Caruso, whose other credits include Eagle Eye, xXx: Return of Xander Cage, I Am Number Four and Disturbia. The screenplay was written by Gary Daubman (IT, Annabelle, The Nun) and BenDavid Grabinski.

Are You Afraid of the Dark? ran 91 episodes, from 1990 to 1996 and 1999 to 2000. The anthology series was similar to Tales From the Crypt, but targeted to much younger viewers. Each episode told a different story, with the teen members of the Midnight Society sharing new scares with each other.

In an interview with Slash Film last year, Dauberman said his screenplay embraced some of the darker stories, especially the ones that did not have a happy ending or with a lesson to be learned.

“I really embraced that side of things and I think it’s been a long time,” the writer explained. “I think fear is healthy for kids. I don’t think we have to always sand down the edges of things and that’s something I really wanted to do with Are You Afraid of the Dark. I think it is scary and I think kids will be scared watching it at times, and also they’ll laugh at times. I think it’s got a great message. I think it’s got a great heart to it but it is still scary. I think that’s great. I think it’s going to open it up to a wider audience.”

During the Television Critics Association Press Tour, Nickelodeon president Brian Robbins announced several nostalgic projects for the network, including an All That revival with original cast member Kenan Thompson as an executive producer. The new All That will be a mix of classic sketches and new ones, with a completely new cast of young comedians.

“We think there’s a great opportunity to find the next pool of stars,” Robbins told Variety. “We want to bring the show back in a real fun way. This summer, we are going to bring back a lot of the original cast and the cast through the years, and let them introduce the new cast of All That to the world.”

Robbins also announced plans to finally create SpongeBob SquarePants spin-offs based on familiar characters.

“What used to be O.K. was having one or two hits, then making a zillion episodes of them, and then repeating them. That was enough to satisfy the kid audience because they didn’t have choice,” the network chief explained. “I think today we need to make a volume of quality franchises, but not necessarily feed a million episodes of those shows. We need to keep a constant number of new shows coming, and not necessarily make one show with 80 episodes.”

Photo credit: Nickelodeon