James Wan will officially produce the big screen adaptation of Stephen King’sThe Tommyknockersfor Universal under his Atomic Monster banner. Universal Pictures won the bidding war, which also included Netflix and Sony. While Wan will be producing the project, no writer or director has been announced at this time, but now that a studio is on lock, news should be coming down soon. On an interesting note,Stephen Kinghas previously said thatThe Tommyknockersis an “awful book,” so it will be interesting to see how everything ends up.
JoiningJames Wanin producing will be Larry Sanitsky, who also produced the 1993The Tommyknockersminiseries for ABC. The miniseries received mixed reviews from critics. Some believed that it was one of the betterStephen King adaptationsat the time while others wrote it off as terrible. The movie comes after a big year of King adaptations, most notably Andres Muschietti’s big screen adaptation ofIT, which is now the highest grossing horror movie of all time. A partnership with James Wan and Atomic Monster could end up as a homerun for the adaptation.
The Tommyknockersis a 1987 science fiction novel by Stephen King that takes place in the Maine town of Haven. Residents in the town gradually fall under the influence of amysterious object buried in the woods. King has revealed that the basic premise to the short story The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft was the inspiration for the novel. While King has dismissed the book, it could be because he was struggling with addiction at the time of the writing, bringing up some unpleasant memories.
The Tommyknockerswas originally adapted for the aforementioned 1993 miniseries on ABC and was considered for another stab at the story in 2013, 10 years after the original. However, the project never made it past the development phase. It was previously announced back in March of this year that James Wan and Atomic Monster were looking to make a big screen adaptation ofThe Tommyknockersand now it’s officially happening. It will be interesting to see who they end up going with to direct and write the movie.
James Wan is currently wrapped up in the post-production process for the DCEU’sAquamanmovie, which he directed. The movie is set to come out this December and Wan has been teasing the first footage for months now. Hopefully Wan and his crew are able to makeThe Tommyknockersinto something that Stephen King will be proud of when all is said and done. King isnotoriously critical of his own work, but he recently really enjoyed what Andres Muschietti did withITand was really happy with the way1922ended up on Netflix. This is a developing story and more news aboutThe Tommyknockersis expected to be announced soon. This report was originally reported byDeadline.
