While the majority of filmmakers who make Stephen King movies have a history of being one and done, there is a special list of names who have had much more significant impacts on the history of adaptations. This is a list that includes George A. Romero, Mick Garris, Rob Reiner, Frank Darabont, and Mike Flanagan, and now it also includes Gary Dauberman – who has gone from writing the screenplays for the blockbuster hits IT and IT: Chapter Two to helming the new movie Salem’s Lot.
So how did Dauberman carve out this path for himself? That’s the main story of this week’s fresh edition of The King Beat – which also includes a full update on casting for the developing TV adaptation of The Institute and a new recommendation from the author to watch an upcoming horror film that he is calling one of the best movies he has seen this year. Let’s dig in!
How Gary Dauberman’s Approach To Salem’s Lot Was Helped Following His Experience Making IT
Every Constant Reader has their own special Stephen King origin story. For example, my personal fascination with the author dates back to watching director Mary Lambert’s Pet Sematary at too-young an age and being wowed by the sight of Gage Creed taking a bit out of Jud Crandall’s Adam’s apple. For Gary Dauberman, his personal journey was launched by love for the original miniseries adaptations of IT and Salem’s Lot – and years later, that love would see him make his own versions of both those classic stories.
I had the terrific opportunity to interview the filmmaker at the end of last week to discuss his experience making his new Stephen King adaptation (which will be made available for Max subscribers on October 3), and the opening subject of our conversation concerned his going from writing IT and IT: Chapter Two to Salem’s Lot. He began by explaining how the small screen adaptations of the King titles were foundational in his love of both the author’s work and the horror genre in general, saying,
Two of my big King moments of the ’80s were the IT miniseries and the Salem’s Lot miniseries when it was re-aired. So it’s like Georgie at the sewer, Danny at the window. Those are those two iconic scenes where I’m like, ‘Fuck man. Amazing!’ And they really fueled my passion of horror movies and Stephen King.
As for how adapting a remake of one Stephen King novel led to remaking another, the journey was rather simple for Gary Dauberman. In the aftermath of IT: Chapter Two’s blockbuster success, the filmmaker learned that Warner Bros. held the rights to King’s beloved novel about bloodsuckers, and there were plans to make a new adaptation as a TV series (what would have been the third small iteration of the story following Tobe Hooper’s 1979 miniseries and the 2004 version from Mikael Salomon). Having had the experience of making his directorial debut under his belt – 2019’s underrated Annabelle Comes Home – Dauberman convinced the studio to go in a different direction with the material:
IT comes out, they are big successes, everybody’s looking around what to do next. I knew they were sitting on Salem’s Lot and they were gonna make a TV series of it. And I thought, ‘Let’s do a movie!’ And that’s how that started. It was a pretty easy conversation.
The conversation to get the green light for Salem’s Lot may have been easy, but actually crafting the adaptation was a different story. Despite the novel’s setting being wholly limited to a small town in Maine, the scope of the book is significant, and Gary Dauberman was faced with a significant task. While the previous miniseries versions of the book each had about three hours of runtime to work with, the writer/director of the new version had far less real estate to work with in making the tome into feature.
It was here where Dauberman’s experience making IT was helpful. In writing the scripts for the Andy Muschietti-directed duology, he gained an understanding that even the most devout Stephen King fans will be forgiving when it comes to material being cut or changed when being brought to a new medium. Said the filmmaker,
IT was challenging because you’re trying to whittle down all these great moments and you have to lose a lot of great moments in order to distill it down, even though it’s just two movies. And I was so fucking worried, dude, about like, ‘Holy shit, people are gonna crucify me for not including this, or not including that’ or whatever. And I found the audience to be really forgiving because they understand that the book is the book and the movie is the movie.
Leaning on his past experience, Gary Dauberman felt a reduced anxiety going into the making of Salem’s Lot – though he also stressed that he still holds the source material in the highest esteem:
That gave me, I felt, a little bit of a license, a little bit of a safety net of going like, ‘Ok, well I’m not gonna be able to include everything that I want to in this book, but it seems like the audiences will allow for that.’ So I felt a little less anxious when it came to having to cut certain moments or changing things for narrative purposes or whatever. Because I always get nervous changing his stuff. To me, it’s biblical.
Starring Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Bill Camp, Pilou Asbæk, Alfre Woodard, and William Sadler, Salem’s Lot arrives on Max next week, and I’ll have plenty more stories from my interview with Gary Dauberman here for you on CinemaBlend in the coming days.
The Institute Cast Has Filled Out In Advance Of Its Start Of Production Later This Year
While we are now just a little over a week away from the streaming debut of Salem’s Lot, it’s far from the only upcoming Stephen King project that has been earning anticipation from Constant Readers. Among these titles is The Institute – a brand new television series based on the King novel of the same name that is currently in the works as an MGM+ original. In recent weeks, the show has been expanding its cast, first signing stars Mary Louise-Parker and Ben Barnes before adding Simone Miller and Jason Diaz in key parts, and now it appears that the casting for the production is complete
The Institute is planning to start filming before the end of the year up in Canada (specifically in Nova Scotia), and Deadline got word this week of 11 new actors joining the cast. The list includes the following:
- Joe Freeman (Doctors)
- Fionn Laird (Under the Banner of Heaven)
- Hannah Galway (Under the Banner of Heaven)
- Julian Richings (Beau Is Afraid)
- Robert Joy (Julia)
- Viggo Hanvelt (Our Christmas Mural)
- Arlen So (Something Rotten)
- Birva Pandya (The Umbrella Academy)
- Dan Beirne (Ginny & Georgia)
- Martin Roach (Suits)
- Jane Luk (Streams Flow From A River)
The majority of these stars are new to the world of Stephen King movies and TV, but veteran character actors Julian Richings and Robert Joy are exceptions. The former’s credits include roles in the TV series Chapelwaite and Kingdom Hospital as well as the miniseries Bag Of Bones, while the latter previously had a supporting part in director George A. Romero’s The Dark Half.
Joe Freeman will play Luke Ellis, the series lead in The Institute. Luke is a gifted pre-teen who wakes up one morning to discover that he has been abducted and brought to a secluded, high security facility where he is experimented on as a means of expanding his potential for telekinesis. Fionn Laird, Viggo Hanvelt, Arlen So, and Birva Pandya will play fellow young inmates at the titular Institute while Robert Joy, Julian Richings and Jane Luk will portray various members of the administration.
Produced by Jack Bender (Mr. Mercedes) and Benjamin Cavell (The Stand), the first season run of The Institute will be eight episodes, but a release date has not yet been announced.
Stephen King Dubs The Rule Of Jenny Pen To Be One Of The Best Movies Of 2024
Stephen King has been a font for great movie recommendations in 2024, from hyping Late Night With Devil starring David Dastmalchian to promoting the spider-centric terror of Infested, and this week, the author has identified another title that all horror fans should be putting on their radar: The Rule Of Jenny Pen. The film just had its world premiere this month at Fantastic Fest, and the legendary author says it’s one of the best things he’s seen all year.
As per usual, this new recommendation comes via Stephen King’s Twitter feed. He got an early look at the upcoming scary movie starring John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush, and he very clearly got a kick out of it:
I watched one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It’s called THE RULE OF JENNY PEN, and I urge you to watch it when it appears on Shudder. Geoffrey Rush stars, with John Lithgow as a geriatric psychopath with an evil hand puppet.
Directed and co-written by James Ashcroft, The Rule Of Jenny Pen centers on a judge (Geoffrey Rush) who is trapped within his body following a stroke but must do everything he can to try and stop the actions of a lunatic (John Lithgow) who is abusing fellow residents at the rest home where he lives. The movie won two high profile awards at Fantastic Fest, including Best Director for Ashcroft and Best Actor for Rush.
News about wider distribution for The Rule Of Jenny Pen is currently limited, as while we know it has been acquired by Shudder, the only thing we know about release plans is that it will be part of the streamer’s library at some point in 2025. Stay tuned for more news about the movie as we get closer to the new year, however.
That brings this edition of The King Beat to a close, but I’ll be back next week with another new roundup of all the big news from the world of Stephen King. Be sure to head back here every Thursday for my latest column, and in the meantime, you can learn about the full history of King movies and TV shows with my series Adapting Stephen King.