WIRE Buzz: Regina King goes supernatural with The CW's Slay; Night Books, Day of the Dead set casts

The director behind Brightburn's horror-spun take on the Superman story is heading to Netflix for another scary tale. David Yarovesky will be helming a film adaptation of Nightbooks for the streamer and it's already set its cast.

According to Deadline, the J.A. White children's book adaptation (turned into a screenplay by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis) is about a boy (Winslow Fegley) obsessed with spooky stories and the evil witch (Krysten Ritter) that imprisons him. While stuck in her New York apartment (she's a real modern, urban witch), he meets another young captive (Lidya Jewett) as he pulls a horror version of One Thousand and One Nights, telling a new scary story every night if he wants to keep his life.

Jessica Jones star Ritter is a perfect pick for a 2020 witch and this will be a nice reunion for the actress and Netflix after her Marvel show got the axe. No word on when Nightbooks looks to hit the streamer.

Next, recent Emmy winner and Watchmen star Regina King is producing a supernatural drama being developed over at The CW.

Deadline reports that Slay, written by Julian Johnson and supervised by Pam Veasey (who wrote the king-directed pilot for The Finest), looks to bring the story of the supernaturally empowered Carson Jones to the small screen. Jones is a cool teen with links to an "ancient African bloodline" that helps her protect Virginia’s ultra-haunted Historic Triangle. There's lots of Lovecraft Country vibes here. King and her sister, Reina King, both executive produce.

No timeline has been set for Slay.

Finally, Day of the Dead — the upcoming SYFY series based on George A. Romero's famous zombies — has found its survivors. The 10-episode show looks to tell the story of half a dozen strangers that must survive the first 24 hours after an undead outbreak.

Now, Deadline has put names to five of those six strangers. Keenan Tracey, Daniel Doheny, Natalie Malaika, Morgan Holmstrom, and Kristy Dinsmore will all look to stay unbitten and uneaten as they look to navigate the series. Steven Kostanski will helm the first four episodes, with the show written and showrun by Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas.

Tracey's Cam McDermott is the high schooler son of a local detective, Doheny's Luke Bowman is the son of the mayor, Malaika's Lauren Howell is an assistant mortician (very fitting), Holmstrom's Sarah Blackwood is an ex-Special Forces fracker that stumbles upon a central mystery in the undead plot, and Dinsmore's Amy is a life coach/daughter of a local doctor. Basically, it sounds like a fully-fledged zombie-fighting D&D party when they're fully assembled. When apart, they'll have to see how they fare against the living dead.

Day of the Dead is currently in production in Vancouver.