‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Writers Tackling Horror Anthology Comic ‘Ice Cream Man’ for Screen Gems (Exclusive)

The Ice Cream Man is ready to ring you up a scoop of suffering.

Sony genre label Screen Gems has acquired film rights to the horror anthology comic book that was written and created by W. Maxwell Prince.

Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the creators of the smash hit Wednesday series and writers of the new Beetlejuice movie, are on board to produce the adaptation via their Sony-based Millar Gough Ink. The company’s Aaron Schmidt is also producing.

Ice Cream Man serves up a range of horror flavors and genres, all threaded by the weaver of these tales, the titular character, who could be friend or foe, an angel or a devil. Artists Martin Morazzo and Chris O’Halloran joined Prince on the book.

The comic has been in and out of the Hollywood freezer since it debuted in 2018 from Image Comics. It was once set up at a series at UCP and in 2020 was in development by short-form streamer Quibi. This is the first time the title, which continues to publish on an irregular schedule, is being developed as a feature.

The project is in early development and a search for a writer is currently underway. Prince will act as an exec producer on the project.

Gough and Millar are veterans of both film and TV, having worked on Sam Raimi’s critically acclaimed blockbuster Spider-Man 2 and movies such as Shanghai Noon and also were showrunners for an astounding 10 seasons of the now-classic DC series Smallville. In 2022, Wednesday, with episodes directed by Tim Burton, became Netflix’s most-watched English language series of all time and the duo and their company are now in production on season two.

They wrote Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the Beetlejuice sequel that reunited them with Burton and Wednesday star Jenna Ortega and which opens today. The movie is tracking for a massive TKTK opening.

Gough and Millar are repped by WME and Gendler Kelly. Prince and Ice Cream Man are repped by the appropriately-named attorney Matt Sugarman of Weintraub Tobin as well as by Angela Cheng Caplan.