Stephen King

On the eve of the Cannes Film Market, Benaroya Pictures and Miscellaneous Entertainment’s newly formed international sales company, International Film Trust, has added a new title to their Cannes slate: the Stephen King adaptation Cell, starring John Cusack.

IFT has acquired the remaining international territories for Cell with Benaroya Pictures now on board to finance and co-produce.

The film will be directed by Tod "Kip" Williams (Paranormal Activity 2) and shooting begins this September.

Last December, the screen rights to Stephen King's novel 11/22/63 slipped out of Jonathan Demme's hands.  The Silence of the Lambs helmer was grooming the tale for the big screen but, as of last year, the project was "off of the table," as he put it.

But now, a new party is circling the adaptation: J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot.  Deadline says that the company is currently in talks with Warner Bros. to have the story unfold on television as a series rather than a feature  film.

Under the Dome has found its leading man.  THR reports Mike Vogel (Cloverfield) has been cast in the CBS series adaptation of the Stephen King novel.

According to the site, Vogel will play Dale "Barbie" Barbara.  When we first meet Dale, he's attempting to flee the town of Chester's Mill before it is cover by an invisible dome.

Last fall we saw John Cusack being attached to an adaptation of Stephen King's Cell which is now being developed at Cargo Entertainment.

Today, we learn Tod Williams (Paranormal Activity 2) is going to direct.  The project was once a directing vehicle for Eli Roth when the adaptation was set up at Dimension Films.

 Screen Daily reports King and Adam Alleca (The Last House on the Left) penned the script and production is expected to begin this May.

Carrie may have been moved to October 18th (it was originally going to open in March), but the viral campaign over at the film's Facebook page carries on with its updates.

The post recent posting is a physical education report card for "Carrietta White."  As you can imagine, the girl doesn't dig the gym.

Chloe Moretz, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Gabriella Wilde and Ansel Elgort star in the new adaptation of the Stephen King novel.  Head inside for the viral image.

Under the Dome, the 13-episode adaptation of the Stephen King novel, added Jolene Purdy and Nicholas Strong to the cast which already includes Britt Robertson, Alex Koch, Natalie Martinez and Colin Ford.

According to Deadline, Purdy will play "a brilliant, eccentric engineer at the local radio station who will draw on her unique skills in an effort to make contact with the world outside the dome. Strong will play Phil, a popular radio DJ and indie rock fanatic, a charismatic figure with a dark secret."

Two more are being added to Under the Dome's cast.  

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Alex Koch and Natalie Martinez will join Colin Ford (the first to be cast).  The former is playing Junior Rennie, the pain-in-the-ass - and deeply troubled - son of "Big Jim" Rennie, the story's town politician and car dealer.  Martinez, meanwhile, is going to be Deputy Linda.

Martinez previously starred alongside Jason Statham in the Death Race remake (pictured).

If you look at my book collection, it is dominated by a lot of Stephen King novels - both limited editions and mainstream releases.  

There's one tome that sits on my shelf called "Stephen King Collectibles," released in 2000 by Betts Bookstore out of Bangor, Main (naturally) and written by George Beahm.  Essentially, the book looks at every title King had penned to date and every edition that has been released so there's a lot of rare stuff.  Expensive stuff.  It's one of those books that you crack open and start sifting through page by page time and time again - and that's what I got caught up doing this morning until I landed on something I completely forgot about...  

An asbestos-bound edition of "Firestarter."  You can get a rough look at the book inside.

Shortly before Stephen King's 11/22/63 was published last year, The Silence of the Lambs' Jonathan Demme secured the rights to the tale to produce, write and direct a screen adaptation.  Now it appears Demme is no longer involved.

He told The Playlist recently that the project is "off the table" after he could not see eye to eye with King regarding what the film should be.  "This is a big book, with lots in it. And I loved certain parts of the book for the film more than Stephen did. We're friends, and I had a lot of fun working on the script, but we were too apart on what we felt should be and what be should be out of the script," he told the site.

The last story in Stephen King's Different Seasons to not be adapted for the screen - The Breathing Method - is in development at Blumhouse Productions with Scott Derrickson of Sinister in line to direct.  Derrickson is riding a certain amount of success right now for Sinister's $18 million opening.  Scott Teems will pen the adaptation.

Director Tom Holland (Fright Night, Child's Play) is venturing into Stephen King territory once again with a feature film adaptation of The Ten O'Clock People.

Holland and King have previously collaborated on the popular thrillers The Langoliers and Thinner.

After an extended hiatus, Holland returned to directing in 2007 as a featured director in the acclaimed Masters of Horror series for Showtime.  Currently he is writing and directing Twisted Tales, a series of shorts for FEARnet. 

King’s The Ten O’Clock People was a short story published in 1993 as part of his “Nightmares and Dreamscapes” collection and was notable for being set in Boston, Massachusetts as opposed to his familiar Maine locale. The story follows Brandon Pearson, who in trying to kick his smoking habit uncovers a frightening aspect of reality, he plans to extinguish through extreme measures.

A tale culled from the pages of Stephen King's Full Dark, No Stars is in line for a screen adaptation.

Atlas International has tapped Peter Askin to helm the story "A Good Marriage."  Askin's credits include Company Man and the documentary Trumbo.

The synopsis for "A Good Marriage" goes like this:

Darcy Anderson discovers her husband has been keeping an especially terrible secret for years. What happens when, on a perfectly ordinary evening, all the things you believed in and took for granted are turned upside-down? What do you do and who do you call on when you discover that your good marriage has been built on a nightmare foundation of torture and murder?

Are you ready to see the return of Jobe?  Before you answer that, know that Park Entertainment has packaged, and is trying to find a home for, a television series based on The Lawnmower Man films.  Hmm, sounds like a natural fit for SyFy.

According to Moviehole, Park is pushing its project heavily at Cannes this week and David Titcher (The Librarian) has apparently penned the pilot.

The Lawnmower Man was a feature film, starring Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey, released in 1992 and loosely based on the short story by Stephen King.  

Actually, forget the use of the word "loosely," the film and short story have nothing to do with one another other than the fact that they both featured a lawnmower man, still, that didn't stop the distributor from using Stephen King's name when the film was released.