Susan Hill published The Woman in Black in 1983 and has kept writing ghost stories for more than six decades since. John Gore Studios, the company that owns Hammer Films, has acquired the rights to all of it. Variety broke the deal on Monday.
The acquisition covers Hill’s complete catalogue for film and television, with theatre opportunities to follow where existing rights arrangements allow. Hill will help manage the portfolio and shape development strategy, and she is set to serve as executive producer on new projects.
“Susan Hill is one of Britain’s most distinctive literary voices,” said John Gore, founder and executive chairman of John Gore Studios. “Our ambition is to approach these stories with the same care, craftsmanship and respect for character.” Chief operating officer Anouska Spiers added, “The success of The Woman in Black proved the power of her storytelling on screen.”
The Titles Hammer Could Reach Next
Five more Hill ghost stories have been named as adaptation candidates: The Man in the Picture, Dolly, The Small Hand, The Mist in the Mirror and Printer’s Devil Court. Gore bought Hammer in 2023 and has since said he wants to revisit the studio’s classics, starting with an evil Frankenstein, though no writer or director is attached to any remake yet.
Hill was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1972 for The Bird of Night, won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Whitbread Novel Award, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. “For any author, it’s heartening to see their stories continue to find new life,” she said.
Three Adaptations, One Long Rights Dispute
Hill’s novel has reached the screen twice, and the first of those two versions spent decades out of circulation. Nigel Kneale wrote ITV’s 1989 television film, Herbert Wise directed it, it aired on Christmas Eve that year, and it collected four BAFTA nominations. A dispute over UK distribution rights between Central Television and three members of the production team then kept it off the air after 1994 and off home video after 1991. Network Distributing did not issue a restored Blu-ray until October 2020.
The 2012 film took the story to multiplexes. Directed by James Watkins from a script by Jane Goldman, it opened to $20 million in the United States, the biggest US opening in Hammer’s history, and finished around $130 million worldwide against a $15 million budget.
The stage version has outlasted both. Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation opened at the Lyric Hammersmith in January 1989 and ran at the Fortune Theatre until 4 March 2023, closing after 13,232 performances as the second longest-running non-musical play in West End history, behind only The Mousetrap.
Hammer’s own sequel, The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, reached North American screens on January 2, 2015 and took $48.9 million worldwide. The studio’s next release is Ithaqua, due in UK cinemas in early 2027. No new Hill adaptation has been dated.