stephen king

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but a new adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand may be moving forward. Reports indicate the years-delayed adaptation may have found a home at CBS All-Access under New Mutants director Josh Boone.

A lot going on here.

It is the adrenaline rush the box office sorely needed after a summer that could accurately be described as “pretty bad” — the new take on Stephen King’s doorstop of a novel is the best horror opening ever, the highest single-day box office for an R-rated movie, the lowest-budgeted movie to gross over $100 million in its opening weekend, and now it’s the biggest opening for a September movie in history.

Before the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s IT even hit theaters, early box office predictions suggested anywhere from a $60 to $70 million opening. By contrast, this year’s other big King adaptation, The Dark Tower, has grossed $47.9 million domestic in the month since its release. While we wait for the initial box office numbers to roll in, New Line is already developing a sequel to IT, but it probably won’t hit theaters until 2019.

It was last summer that the the tragic passing of Anton Yelchin paused the series adaptation of Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes, but the title killer is finally ready to ride. AT&T’s blood-soaked tale has a first full trailer for its August premiere.

After breaking the record for the most trailer views in a single day, expectations couldn’t be higher for Andres Muschietti’s remake of It. It wasn’t long ago that this seemed like a project destined for trouble; the film’s original director  —  and still credited screenwriter  —  Cary Fukunaga dropped out of the production after the studio wouldn’t budge on letting him make an ‘unconventional’ horror film, causing fans to worry we were in for another bland adaptation of a Stephen King novel. All was forgiven, of course, when New Lined delivered that amazing first It teaser trailer, but could they keep it up?

By this point in a big film’s marketing cycle, we typically would have seen a couple trailers, a ton of posters, lengthy magazine pieces, the works. In contrast, there has been so little concrete info out there on The Dark Tower, which opens in theaters in almost exactly three months, that some people (like, y’know, me) began to doubt whether the movie would open on time, or even if it existed at all.

Studio math might be one part proprietary data and one part alchemy, but here’s something I feel pretty confident saying: when your trailer sets the all-time record for most views in a day, you’re about to make some moolah. We all remember that the first teaser trailer for It had 197 million views in its first 24 hours online, shattering the previous (albeit short-lived) record of 139 million set by The Fate of the Furious. Those would be extraordinary numbers for any movie, but for an unapologetic horror film about a demon clown? Not even the most aggressive Warner Bros. projections could have predicted that.

As if Stephen King hadn’t already taken over your TV, The Mist is starting to roll in. Spike’s ten-episode adaptation of the iconic tale gets a first full trailer with a re-imagined premise, ahead of a June premiere.

There are two groups who are going to feel personally victimized about the new It movie: young children, because Pennywise eats them, and real-life professional clowns. It’s no secret that most people are afraid of clowns — that’s the whole reason Pennywise appears as a clown in Stephen King’s novel in the first place. But folks who make their living as clowns are afraid the new movie will only exacerbate those fears and make it much more difficult to land grade school birthday party gigs.

Horror fans have been waiting for months. Stephen King fans have been waiting for years. And after a week of teasers and sneak peeks, the first trailer for It, Andres Muschietti’s highly-anticipated adaptation of King’s classic horror novel (or one half of it, anyway) is finally here to give us our best look yet at that divisive new take on the iconic evil clown. Beep beep, we’re all gonna float.

“You know the one where Michael Jackson dresses up as an old white guy and dances in a haunted house?” is a thing I’ve said to countless people about the short film Ghosts. But every time I mention the Michael Jackson and Stephen King collaboration, no one knows what I’m talking about. That’s right, the King of Pop and the master of horror made a short film together in 1996. While the film may have 14 million views on YouTube, I’ve only met one other person who can slightly recall the movie. In honor of Halloween, I’m looking back on the 15-year-old movie and trying to figure out why it’s been forgotten.