By Everyone wants a piece of Stephen King.
I don’t mean that in the current sense, either. The King of horror himself has pretty well been running a perpetual motion machine of adaptations, series, TV movies, and big screen blockbusters since before I was born. From my count (using this list) he has about a hundred film or TV projects adapted from or spun out of his work, though IMDB has him at nearly three hundred writing credits. The point is that since the late 70’s the Stephen King brand hasn’t waned or tired, and it still shows no signs of slowing down.
It even feels like they’re ramping up with big budget films like It and Pet Sematary reaching theaters, but I think that’s more because the glut of King’s adaptations have been relegated to the small screen for so long–such as Salem’s Lot, which had a Tobe Hooper TV movie (which still holds up in a spooky fun sort of way) and a TNT adaptation staring Rob Lowe. Besides that, Salem’s Lot has largely remained untrodden ground, especially on the silver screen.
But James Wan is preparing to change all that and till fresh soil on the decades-old classic, as he’ll be teaming with It remake writer Gary Dauberman to bring a theatrical version of the tale to New Line Cinema. That’s a pretty sweet pairing, the only bad news being that Wan is only attached to produce and not direct. Who will direct remains a question mark, and with Andy Muschietti moving on to an Attack on Titan adaptation, it seems unlikely that he’ll juggle (like a clown, ha!) this as well.
Either way, I’m looking forward to it. I have a soft spot for Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot and always wondered what he would’ve done had he been given the opportunity to make a bigger production out of it. That sadly will never happen, but the folks attached so far give me a good deal of hope.
Gary Dauberman, James Wan Adapting Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot’ For New Line Cinema [Deadline]
