Stephen King is enjoying another great cinematic boom.
Both Gerald’s Game and 1922 are coming to Netflix, The Dark Tower will arrive in theaters late July for Sony, and the first part of Warner’s It remake will drop next September. It’s a smart move by all parties given the built-in audience, and if either film manages to be solid, it has the chance to be continuously rediscovered by new generations to come.
As previously reported, King’s 2014 novel Revival is also in the works with director Josh Boone, who put his long-gestating adaptation of The Stand on pause to tackle the supernatural drama. According to a recent interview with Creative Screenwriting, he has a finished script and even a star attached to it.
“I’ve had very, very different screenwriting experiences based on how the project comes together,” he explains. “For example, I have a good relationship with Stephen King, so when I wanted to adapt his novel Revival, I really just went and asked him. I was able to write it in a very pleasant bubble and we attached Russell Crowe. I plan to make that right after New Mutants.”
The film’s clearly in its early stages (Boone acknowledges himself that his X-Men spinoff New Mutants is the priority of the moment), but he admittedly sounds bullish about the film’s prospects: “I wrote Revival in a bubble in a month, did a rewrite a few months later that took two weeks, and haven’t touched it since. We just went and put the money and cast together.”
It should be noted that Crowe was at one point tapped to play Roland Deschain in The Dark Tower when Ron Howard was still attached, so it’s rather poetic justice that he’ll be involved in this one. Of course, we have a long time to wait, and as any self-respecting fan knows, time is never kind to any of King’s many film adaptations.
Nevertheless, here’s the official synopsis for Revival:
“In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.
Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.”
