Originally published March 30, 2018. Updated August 18, 2018.
According to THR, James Wan (The Conjuring) is teaming with Roy Lee, one of the producers on last year’s It, to produce a big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s 1987 sci-fi/horror novel The Tommyknockers.
The site reports that the project, which is being produced through Wan’s Atomic Monster and Lee’s Vertigo Entertainment, has been packaged and sent out to prospective studios and digital services such as Netflix over the Easter weekend.
“It is an allegorical tale of addiction (Stephen was struggling with his own at the time), the threat of nuclear power, the danger of mass hysteria and the absurdity of technical evolution run amuck,” said Larry Sanitsky, who holds the rights to the novel through his 1993 miniseries adaptation, and will also serve as executive producer on the movie. “All are as relevant today as the day the novel was written. It is also a tale about the eternal power of love and the grace of redemption.”
The Tommyknockers sees the residents of the town of Haven, Maine coming under the influence of a dangerous gas which emerges from a long-buried alien spacecraft. The gas gradually transforms the townsfolks, granting them enhanced abilities, but also violent tendencies, and it is up to one man to save the day – Jim Gardner, who is immune to the effects of the gas thanks to a steel plate in his head.
ABC aired the two-part TV adaptation of The Tommyknockers – starring Jimmy Smits as Jim Gardner – in 1993, while a new miniseries was announced by NBC in 2013, but never made it to the screen.
