Popverse's top stories of the day

• Dune: Prophecy creators promise to bring the "complexity" and "grand scale" of Frank Herbert's books and Denis Villeneuve's movies to TV
• Marvel's TV head says there's "absolutely" a future for Jon Bernthal's Punisher after his Daredevil: Born Again appearance
• Meet the Grim Reaper of The Walking Dead TV show cast, and what goes into killing someone off in the show

If you think superhero movies have a bit of reboot fatigue, let's not get into classic novels. And if at first you don't succeed, try try again.

Deadline's Rosy Cordero reports that the Walt Disney Company is working on a whipsmart YA movie adaptation of the classic 1920 prose novel The Phantom of the Opera, this time ditching the opera and calling it simply 'Phantom.' The movie is being developed for the Disney+ streaming service, with Disney YA impresario Kenny Ortga (High School Musical, The Descendants) to steer the whole thing.

This isn't the first time Disney has tried this - back in 2000 they did a YA movie revamp of the Phantom of the Opera, also ditching the 'opera' in favor of a movie theater. What resulted was a forgettable Disney Channel movie called Phantom of the Megaplex. 

This time out, Disney is hoping Phantom will be more than just a forgettable movie - but the beginning of a franchise similar to High School Musical or The Descendants. I can see Erik as a smoldering YA dreamboat, can't you? 

It's too soon to think 'release date' on this one, as all they have is a script and ambition - but I imagine next up is casting.