Forget the allegations of superhero fatigue… Will Hollywood ever tire of adapting Stephen King's stories? Just yesterday we got word of Mike Flanagan dipping back into the prolific horror master's canon for a new film, and now it's the turn of producer James Wan and star Theo James, who have their sights on King's short story The Monkey.
Writer/director (and occasional actor) Osgood "Oz" Perkins is tackling the short story, first published in adult magazine Gallery in 1980 then collected into the Skeleton Crew book in 1985.
Here's the basic story… When twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them.
"Stephen King is the godfather of the horror genre. He had a huge influence on me as a child and throughout my career, and it’s always been a dream to help bring one of his stories to life," Wan says in a statement picked up by Deadline. "The Monkey is a personal favorite, with its simple, iconic and incredibly marketable conceit. And I can’t imagine anyone better than a visionary and lifelong genre fan like Osgood to bring this to life."
As for Wan, he'll be back in a directorial capacity with Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, due on 26 December.