As the rest of the world farts into their couch cushions, gaping into the middle distance and flinching every time COVID slams against their window, The Haunting Of Hill House creator Mike Flanagan is out here making moves. Sure, production on Netflix’s Midnight Mass has ceased due to the pandemic, but the filmmaker has, in the course of a single week, announced two new horror projects.
The first, which we previously reported, is a series adaptation of teen horror legend Christopher Pike’s The Midnight Club. And now—after, we assume, his buddy Stephen King got jealous—The Hollywood Reporter is saying he’s tackling yet another of King’s novels: 2014's holy-rolling Revival. This follows the director’s previous adaptations of Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game, the latter of which is, in this writer’s opinion, still the best King film since Frank Darabont’s The Mist.
Revival tracks the relationship between a heroin-addicted musician and a charismatic faith healer, the latter of whom unleashes an unspeakable horror in his efforts to contact his dead wife and child. Flanagan is writing the script with an option to direct, and pursuing the project with Warner Bros. and longtime collaborator Trevor Macy. If it heads into production, it will, like Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, be the first adaptation of the book. No remakes for Flanagan, for which we say thankee-sai.
Flanagan’s isn’t the first stab at Revival, though. Josh Boone, who’s currently at work on CBS All Access’ The Stand, wrote a script for Revival in 2016 with hopes to go into production that year. That, obviously, didn’t happen, which we’re just going to guess is New Mutants’ fault, New Mutants being cursed and all.
Later this year, Flanagan will (hopefully) release his The Haunting Of Hill House follow-up, The Haunting of Bly Manor, because clearly it’s not scary enough out there.
9 Comments
The AV Club reviewer didn’t much like Revival, but I think it’s one of King’s more underrated novels. It’s a short, nasty little book, with a hell of a downer ending.
I could see Aaron Paul playing Jamie, and then we could all pretend this was the bummer ending for Jesse Pinkman that they backed away from in El Camino.
Jesse was on his way to a relatively happy ending in the Breaking Bad finale. If the show had ended with Ozymandias, that would be another story.
Revival is the second best modern King book – after 11.22.63 which is some distance ahead
Revival is my favorite King novel since 2000 or so. It seems to be a real love-it-or-hate-it book though, even among serious King fans.
still waiting for this guy to make something scary
I think people don’t mention enough how scary Stephen King looks.
i liked the film version of “dr. sleep” more than the book & i’m a big king fan. sometimes the guy just can’t stick the landing. (i’m looking at you, “dark tower” series.) flanagan’s decision to tie into the world of kubrick’s film version of “the shining” really amped up the ending of the movie where the ending of the book was a letdown b/c king had destroyed the overlook in his version. i also really liked the movie version of “the mist” – again, it had a better ending than king’s. this film should be good b/c “revival” is a good, short shock that already does has a hell of a nasty climax.
No remakes for Flanagan, for which we say thankee-sai.
Haunting of Hill House and Turn of the Screw already had film adaptations.