Tim Burton and Seth Grahame-Smith are probably making a stop-motion monster movie together

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter scribe Seth Grahame-Smith recently took time out of his busy schedule of doodling werewolves in Dickens novels (or whatever) to talk to The Hollywood Reporter, where he confirmed what many have suspected: He and Burton are developing an inseparability that threatens to usurp all those knee-jerk “Johnny Depp” jokes. And in addition to having Burton produce the film adaptation of Lincoln, writing the script for Burton’s Dark Shadows, and being attached to draft that promised Beetlejuice sequel, Grahame-Smith says he’s also working on entering another one of Burton’s well-worn areas with the “stop-motion monster movie” Night Of The Living.

Grahame-Smith didn’t share many details about the story he says he’s been kicking around “for years,” though he did say that he was inspired by Burton’s The Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie to adapt it into animation. And of course, you can probably draw your own conclusions about the story based on the title, where the resemblance to George Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead probably isn’t accidental. There’s similarly no indication of whether this would be filmed before or after Burton’s last announced stop-motion animation movie, The Addams Family, but considering Burton and Grahame-Smith are in the heady honeymoon phase of their relationship—when it’s all pillow talk, lingering brunches, and recycling horror movie tropes together—it seems possible this might take precedence.