It feels like we spend half our time these days reporting on Stephen King adaptations creeping their way towards screens. Another has been announced, with The Conjuring's James Wan and It producer Roy Lee teaming up to pitch a new adaptation of King's 1987 novel The Tommyknockers to various studios and streaming services.
They've formed a group with Larry Sanitsky, who previously brought the story to the world via TV in 1993. The story follows a town in Maine that falls under the influence of a dangerous gas from an unearthed space craft. The gas begins to transform the people, giving them enhanced abilities, but also making them violent and subject to an alien hive mentality. One man, thanks to a steel plate in his head, is immune to the effects and tries to stop his fellow townsfolk.
"It is an allegorical tale of addiction (Stephen was struggling with his own at the time), the threat of nuclear power, the danger of mass hysteria and the absurdity of technical evolution run amuck," says Sanitsky in a statement included with the pitch that The Hollywood Reporter obtained. "All are as relevant today as the day the novel was written. It is also a tale about the eternal power of love and the grace of redemption." We're sure it'll be popular with the various companies given the enduring appetite for King's work and the recent success of It. And the small matter that it's the author's second-best-selling book of all time. Let the bidding wars commence!
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