Upcoming Stephen King film Projects

*Originally published on 11/23/09


Movies based on the works of Stephen King are already legion. As if the ton of film adaptations weren't enough, some films even spawned sequels. The Children of the Corn movie actually begat six sequels and a remake. That, ladies and gentlemen, is nuts. It seems Hollywood isn't done yet.
I wrote an article in March that detailed Warner Bros' plans to bring his epic classic It to the big screen. You may remember that a TV miniseries was made back in 1990. For a long time, the SciFi (I'm sorry that's Syfy now, isn't it) channel was planning on remaking the series, but I have read nothing of it since. Actually, I haven't come across any recent news on this movie either.

A more recent announcement came back in September when it was announced that Home Delivery, a short story that was featured in his Nightmares and Dreamscapes collection would be adapted into a feature film. This was fairly big news as both Aintitcool and Chud reported on it. The film has a director in Ryuhei Kitamura, who that is, I have no clue. Evidently, a screenplay is already written so we'll have to see what comes of this.

The Dark Tower has long been a franchise that has been in talks for a feature film. Some time back J.J. Abrams the creator of such hit shows like Alias and Lost agreed to direct. He is an avid King fan and a fan of the Dark Tower series in general. I had long thought that the film was just stuck in development hell, but it turns out that Abrams was waiting for Lost to finish up. You would think that with this being Lost's last season that there would be a few progress reports on it. Alas, the only report to come out was that Abrams was dropping the project because he didn't think he could do it justice. This would frustrate me, but I guess it's better to have no adaptation than a bad one.

I remember reading about TNT doing a six hour miniseries based on the epic novel, The Talisman. It was a door stopper of a novel that took the collaborative efforts of both King and fellow author Peter Straub. It has become something of a fan favorite and I wanted to see the miniseries come to fruition. Alas, there has been no news lately. IMDB lists the release date as 2010 so it may still be in the works, but there isn't any real information to go on at the moment.

Speaking of IMDB, the sequel to The Talisman, Black House is also listed as an upcoming release. With The Talisman being made, I suppose making Black House makes sense. I think that they should wait until the first movie gets done before worrying about a second. If it gets made, great, I was a huge fan of the book, but I don't think it should be made unless The Talisman is made first. It'll also be interesting to see how they handle the Dark Tower tie ins. I have to say I would laugh if two Dark Tower tie in books got film releases that eliminated all of the references because the films never got made (the first one was Hearts in Atlantis).

Cell is another one that's been talked about for awhile. Saw director, Eli Roth was attached but he decided not to do it. From what I've read, King has a script ready and I'm fairly sure they have a new director so hopefully we start to hear some news about that in the near future.

Under the Dome, King's latest and one of his longest will be adapted for HBO as either a mini-series or a full series. The master himself announced this at a book signing in Dundalk to promote the new release. I have to give them credit, that was quick. Given the length of the book, this is probably the best way to go about it.

There are quite a few projects in the works. Admittedly, a lot of them are seemingly stuck in development hell, let's all keep our fingers crossed that these do come to pass. I, for one, am excited to see how these works all adapt to the big screen.