Writer-director Rob Savage, who quickly emerged as a beloved horror filmmaker with his pandemic Zoom thriller Host and the upcoming (hilarious and incredibly gory) Blumhouse film Dashcam, has been brought on to helm an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story, The Boogeyman.
King’s 1973 story follows a man named Lester Billings, who visits a psychiatrist and recounts how his three young children were each killed by a nightmarish creature that emerged from their bedroom closets. The logline for this The Boogeyman movie adaptation, however, suggests slight deviations from the source material. According to Deadline, the official synopsis reads: still reeling from the tragic death of their mother, a teenage girl and her little brother find themselves plagued by a sadistic presence in their house and struggle to get their grieving father to pay attention before it’s too late.
This particular adaptation has been in development for a few years, having passed from Akela Cooper (Malignant) to Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (A Quiet Place), and onto Black Swan’s Mark Heyman. Casting is expected to happen soon, with filming set to begin early next year.
This is the latest in a string of Stephen King adaptation announcements. While Salem’s Lot is expected soon in September 2022, the busy development slate also includes The Vigil director Keith Thomas’s Firestarter, starring Zac Efron, due next year; an untitled Pet Sematary sequel; Ryan Murphy and Jason Blum’s Netflix adaptation of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone; a remake of John Carpenter’s impeccable Christine; a Steven Spielberg-produced Netflix series The Talisman; a movie rendering of Elevation; a The Jaunt series from Fear The Walking Dead co-creator Dave Erikson; a Running Man remake from Edgar Wright; a series based on The Ten O’Clock People; The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon from director Lynn Ramsay; the never-before adapted The Long Walk; and a The CW series Revelations.
And that’s just a handful of examples, of which there are about fifteen more. Must be good to be Stephen King.
