The road to a Poltergeist remake has been bumpy and when it finally happens the many bumps will no doubt be attributed to some made up, never seen, imaginary force which has nothing better to do than throw things about and mess very poorly with the odd human life. None the less the remake still seems to be moving forward.

A new writer is being rumoured as taking on the latest version of the script, no doubt to try and make it as different as all the Paranormal Activity type films out there, or worse still to make it more like all those non-scary films.

Back in November of 2006 was when we first heard the smallest sliver of a rumour about a remake for the classic and excellent film Poltergeist, even back then we knew it was going to be very different, but this was a really slim rumour. That changed.

Roll on a few possible confirmations such as the one in May 2007 which suggested a writer was on the project leading to something a little more concrete in July 2008 when we heard that Michael Grais had written a script called Poltergeist: In the Shadows.

That didn't last too long because in August of 2008 we heard that Juliet Snowden and Stiles White were on board to write the script for the remake. They had previously written Boogeyman, Knowing and The Possession which was a pretty mixed bag of scripts and nothing that was really pointing to the quality we were hoping from a Poltergeist remake.

Shortly after comes a story that there is a director on board the project, and none other than Vadim Perelman, the director of the excellent House of Sand and Fog and the film The Life Before Her Eyes, I was suddenly excited because the chances are he could really make something positive and much less straight up horror.

The new Poltergeist film was underway.

Well, until October 2009 when the problems at MGM halted the project.

Then in November 2011 the uber-producer Roy Lee who has a number of seemingly tough and occasionally impossible remakes under his belt was rumoured to be in talks to work on the remake.

Then there was nothing. The project crumbled and there was never really anything more. Other films stepped up and took hold of the same genre and while they gained box office recognition they were full of cheap scares brought about by sudden movement from moments of quiet heightened by bursts of loud music - cheap tricks and convoluted plots. The hopes of a more intelligent Poltergeist were gone.

There have been rumours since of writers and producers on the project, even earlier this year there were rumours around that Sam Raimi was set to take on the project and produce the project, but it didn't seem to be going anywhere.

Not so. Now we're hearing word that David Lindsay-Abaire has stepped in to write a new version of the script, he had been rumoured to be on the project a while back but this appears to be a stronger confirmation. This man wrote Robots, Inkheart, Rise of the Guardians and Oz the Great and Powerful. Oh, and don't let me forget, he adapted his own play into a screenplay for Rabbit Hole.

Wow. If that story through ShockTillYouDrop is indeed true then the project is definitely back from the dead and moving forward with a damn good writer. According to their story Lindsay-Abaire has confirmed that he was asked to write the script by Sam Raimi and so we could really be looking at a new Poltergeist film.

It's going to be hard considering the ground has been trampled by the big, lazy, lumbering feet of films like Paranormal Activity, but it means that if the project is to succeed it has to be different, it has to offer something more, and that could be why it works. It could also fall into the trap of just offering audiences more of the same though, and if that happens we're looking at a poor Poltergeist that's for sure, but with this writer on board I think it's off to a strong start.