Go back to sleep Crypt-Keeper, you’re no longer needed. Image: HBO

The Crypt-Keeper can officially stay in his grave.

Speaking to Deadline, TNT and TBS president Kevin Reilly said that the network had to pull its plans to reboot Tales from the Crypt with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan due to rights issues.


“That one got really caught up in a complete legal mess unfortunately with a very complicated underlying rights structure,” Reilly told Deadline. “We lost so much time, so I said, ‘Look, I’m not waiting around four years for this thing’. Maybe that will come back around but in the meantime, Ridley Scott had come up, who has so much creative enthusiasm.”

Reilly refers to May’s news that TNT has teamed with Alien and Blade Runner director Ridley Scott for a science fiction-based block of programming the network hopes to launch in 2018. It will replace the horror block that Tales from the Crypt was earmarked to anchor.


While it would have been cool for Tales from the Crypt to come back, at the same time, often it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie. Without a reboot, there’s no chance to screw it up—and for fans to be disappointed.

[Deadline via BMD]