Something is Killing the Children: Mike Flanagan to adapt James Tynion IV’s hit horror comic for Netflix

Mike Flanagan is a busy, busy man, thanks to his overall deal with Netflix. After creating The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, the Doctor Sleep director is now set to adapt a popular horror comic for the streaming service.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, which first broke the news, Flanagan and his producing partner Trevor Macy are co-writing a pilot adapting Something is Killing the Children, the hit horror comic from Boom! Studios written by James Tynion IV and drawn by Werther Dell’Edera. Flanagan and Macy will also executive produce the series through their Intrepid Pictures banner, should Netflix give it the green light. This of course is in addition to Midnight Mass and The Midnight Club that Flanagan is developing for the streaming service (not to mention The Season of Passage for Universal).

In Something is Killing the Children, the children of Archer’s Peak are going missing. And while few children ever return, those that do have terrible stories of horrible creatures that live in the shadows. Their only hope of finding and eliminating the threat is Erica Slaughter, a mysterious stranger who believes the children and kills monsters. (If you're thinking Buffy the Vampire Slayer, think again; this is a far darker and sadder work than Whedon's show.)

The Eisner, Harvey, and Ringo Award-winning comic has sold more than 1.2 million copies since its launch in September 2019. Though originally conceived as a limited series, Something is Killing the Children wound up becoming an ongoing series due to its massive critical and commercial success.

Macy will serve as showrunner if the project goes forward (which will be the producer’s first foray into running a series). Boom!’s president of development Stephen Christy, CEO Ross Richie, and head of TV Mark Ambrose will executive produce, with Tynion and Dell’Edera acting as co-executive producers.