'Ghosts' to Reappear as a Feature Film
The original British version of 'Ghosts' has departed the small screen to haunt larger venues.
Since the dawn of television, British comedy has been famous for its ensemble groups. The Monty Python sextet may have been the first to become globally famous, but plenty have followed the path they blazed with their silly walks. The Mighty Boosh, the bands that form around Mitchell & Webb, and, most recently, the Horrible Histories gang. Like Monty Python, they are a six-member team who have parlayed their educational nerd-humor into success. After Horrible Histories went off the air, the group moved from sketch comedy to sitcom writing, first with Yonderland (tragically unavailable in the U.S.) and more recently with Ghosts.
The latter was so successful that it spawned an American version, which, against all odds, was also a ratings hit over on CBS and Paramount+, and will debut Season 6 in the latter half of 2026. (It helped that the same band of Brits was behind it, and that instead of a 1:1 character match, the ghosts in the U.S. version were completely reconceived to fit American history as viewers know it.) Now, three years after the original U.K. series concluded with Season 5, the gang is getting back together for a brand new big-screen adventure.
Series creators Mathew Baynton (Murder is Easy), Simon Farnaby (Paddington in Peru), Martha Howe-Douglas (Doctor Foster), Jim Howick (Sex Education), Ben Willbond (There She Goes), and Laurence Rickard (Chicken Town) initially said that they were finished with the show when it concluded in 2023. However, it seems that all they really needed was a couple of years off to work on other projects before coming back together.
As per usual, there's no real synopsis, because half of it will be created on the fly via improv. In lieu of one, the group says:
“We thought we had said goodbye to Button House at the end of the final series. We never planned to come back. But when we had the idea for this story, we all got so excited that we couldn’t resist returning to our haunted home for one more adventure. We can’t wait to be together and to welcome some brilliant new faces, to tell this soul-stirring tale of life and death.”
Baynton, Farnaby, Howe-Douglas, Howick, Rickard, and Willbond all return for the film, joined by former series regulars Lolly Adefope (Saltburn), Charlotte Ritchie (Grantchester), and Kiell Smith-Bynoe (Mitchell & Webb Are Not Helping).
The script will also be created once again by Baynton, Farnaby, Howe-Douglas, Howick, Rickard, and Willbond, who are credited as writers and creators of the franchise. Director Simon Hynd (Can You Keep A Secret), who directed multiple episodes of the original series, will also helm the big screen version, with Alison Carpenter and Andy Brunskill producing. Baynton, Farnaby, Howe-Douglas, Howick, Rickard, and Willbond also serve as executive producers, alongside Jill Forbes for Monumental, Eva Yates for BBC Films, Richard Acton for BBC Studios, and Marie-Claire Benson & Emma Berkofsky for Lionsgate.
Ghosts: The Possession of Button House is currently filming in the U.K. and is expected to reach theaters by 2027.
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