Mark Z. Danielewski Wrote The Pilot For a HOUSE OF LEAVES TV Series

And you really oughtta read it.

By Jul. 09, 2018

Earlier today, an old friend slid into my DMs, asking if I'd heard that Mark Z. Danielewski - author of the 2000 cult horror novel, House of Leaves - had written a pilot script for a TV series based on that book. I had not heard this, as it turned out, and was surprised to hear that was the case.

I was doubly surprised to learn that Danielewski himself had tweeted out a link to said screenplay, just several days ago. 

As you can imagine, I dropped what I was doing and immediately began reading. House of Leaves was a big-ass deal to me when it arrived nearly two decades ago, and in the time since it's been a fun novel to revisit every few years and recommend to friends. Famous for its, shall we say, creative approach to page layouts (not to mention reality itself), House of Leaves is either one of the Great Modern Horror Novels...or a gimmicky pile of hipster trash that doesn't really amount to much. Depends on who you're talking to; I remain a fan.

Anyway, I made it about a dozen pages into Danielewski's script before opening a new tab and starting this post. I'm not sure where its 62 pages are gonna take me, but I do know I've seen enough to recommend it to House of Leaves die-hards: the screenplay opens with the reveal that House of Leaves was not, in fact, a novel, and that the story it contained (and the "Navidson Record" documentary nestled inside that story) was actually true. The literary community turns on Danielewski for perpetrating such an egregious hoax, only to quickly realize the magnitude of its implications: why, if House of Leaves was a true story, then that must mean...

Who knows if this will ever amount to anything. Who knows if any network (*coughNetflixcough*) would be ballsy enough to take on material this unadaptable, or if Danielewski himself would continue generating scripts for the show, or if anyone even wants a House of Leaves adaptation anymore. Totally irrelevant, far as I'm concerned. What matters to me, a long-time House of Leaves fan, is that Danielewski just added a new dimension to his most well-known novel after eighteen years, and the results are utterly bonkers. 

Here's the direct link, in case you missed it in the tweet above. Give it a read, then hit the comments below and let me know what you thought. I know what I'm gonna be doing with the rest of my afternoon.

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