Following on from yesterday’s news that The Dark Tower is coming to the small screen with an adaptation of Wizard and Glass, it is now being reported that another Stephen King project is in the works, with Variety reporting that director Johannes Roberts (The Other Side of the Door) developing Hearts, based upon King’s novella Hearts in Atlantis.
Set in 1966, Hearts is a coming-of-age story which “centers on a group of poor freshmen, surviving off scholarships and aid packages, who become obsessed with the highly addictive – and highly vindictive – card game Hearts and find their world starts to slowly unravel. Their grades begin to fall, and one by one they flunk out at a time when life outside college meant the draft and the jungles of Vietnam.”
“As a teenager, discovering Stephen King’s books and their cinematic counterparts was what led me to want to become a filmmaker,” said Roberts, who is penning the script with his regular writing partner Ernest Riera. “The story Hearts in Atlantis is my favorite piece of King’s writing. Turning this story into a movie had been a lifelong dream.”
“We are delighted to be able to tackle material that is reminiscent of classic Stephen King adaptations like The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me,” added James Harris of The Fyzz Facility, who is financing and producing. “This is a wonderful story, and Johannes and Ernest have again proved what fantastic writers they are with a wonderful adaptation of King’s source material. We are excited to start casting for the film and working towards production in 2017.”
Hearts in Atlantis is the title story from King’s 1999 collection; a Hearts in Atlantis movie was released in 2001, although that adapted two different stories, ‘Low Men in Yellow Coats‘ and ‘Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling‘.
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published September 22, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
