An upcoming movie version of Stephen King’s 1975 vampire novel, ’Salem’s Lot, just got some new blood.
Film-production studio New Line Cinema has hired Gary Dauberman to write and direct a big-screen adaptation of the book, according to Variety. He was the screenwriter for the recent blockbusters It and It Chapter Two, based on the bestselling 1986 King doorstopper, and he also directed the 2019 horror film Annabelle Comes Home.
In the ’Salem’s Lot novel, novelist Ben Mears returns to the small town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine, where he lived as small child, to write about a local mansion. It turns out that a vampire has recently moved to town and bought the house—and that vampirism is sweeping through the community.
The book was adapted as television miniseries twice. The first starred Starsky and Hutch’s David Soul and aired on CBS in 1979, and it spawned its own original sequel—the 1987 film A Return to Salem’s Lot, helmed by respected horror director Larry Cohen. The second miniseries appeared on cable network TNT in 2004 and starred Rob Lowe.
Another TV series, based on the ’Salem’s Lot prequel story “Jerusalem’s Lot” from King’s 1978 collection Night Shift, is currently in the works at premium-cable network Epix, starring Adrien Brody. The fictional town of Jerusalem’s Lot also appeared last year as a setting in the Hulu TV series Castle Rock, which draws on several King works.
No casting news for the new film has yet been announced, but its producers include James Wan, director of Saw and Aquaman; Mark Wolper, who executive-produced the 2004 Salem’s Lot adaptation; and Roy Lee, an executive producer of an upcoming miniseries of King’s epic 1978 novel, The Stand, for CBS All Access.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
