Remember how in his early years at Hogwarts Harry Potter would stick around the school during his winter break because he didn't want to go back to the Dursley's, and he and Ron and whoever else stuck around would get into all kinds of trouble? That sounded like a ton of fun, right? Hogwarts was the kind of endearingly haunted place you'd want to get stuck in and explore, and the downside of all the movies is that they didn't have more time to just poke around Hogwarts and show you what's left to see.
Sadly we'll never get the movie version of Hermione's favorite book Hogwarts: A History, but the writer/director team of George Kay and Jim Field Smith may have just pitched the next best thing. According to Deadline their next script School of Horrors is being pitched as "Home Alone at Hogwarts," and is about a boy whose parents abandon him in a haunted school when they go on vacation. Paramount has picked up the script and plans to direct it in 2011, presumably after Smith wraps up post-production on his latest effort Butter.
The project is most definitely the "fantasy-tinged four-quadrant comedy in the vein of Night at the Museum" we heard about back in November when Paramount first picked up the script; presumably things are now finally becoming official now that deals are set in place. Smith's last directorial effort She's Out Of My League was a little less spectacular than it could have been, but he still seems like a promising talent, and the "Home Alone at Hogwarts" idea is friggin' brilliant. I'm hoping for good things here.
