Jason Clarke in Talks to Star in Stephen King's 'Pet Sematary' Reboot
In hopes of replicating the success of last year's IT, which went on to earn more than $700 [...]
In hopes of replicating the success of last year's IT, which went on to earn more than $700 million worldwide, a new adaptation of Stephen King's Pet Sematary is on the way. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes star Jason Clarke is in talks to star in the film, which will be directed by Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch.
In King's novel, a family moves to a small town in Maine and discovers a pet cemetery across the street, with a local resident claiming that animals buried nearby have been known to come back to life. Following a tragic accident in which a toddler dies, the father buries his son at this supernatural location in hopes of his little boy returning to the family.
Clarke would star as the family's patriarch.
Pet Sematary was adapted into a film in 1989, earning a sequel in 1992.
Widmyer and Kolsch debuted with 2014's Starry Eyes, which told the story of an actress who would stop at nothing to earn herself the role of a lifetime, no matter what impact it had on her mind, body, and soul. The duo most recently directed the third season of MTV's Scream: The TV Series, which is set to debut this spring.
Like many of King's books, the origins of the novel were rooted in his own experience. The inspiration for the story came from an incident in which King stayed at a house that was across the street from an actual pet cemetery. Stephen King's website describes what it was about the house that inspired him to write the novel:
"Stephen was serving as a writer-in-residence at the University of Maine at Orono and living in a rented house in nearby Orrington that bordered a major truck route which frequently claimed the lives of dogs and cats. In the woods behind his house, local children had created an informal pet cemetery. One day, his daughter's cat was killed by a passing truck. Stephen was faced with the task of burying the cat in the pet cemetery and then explaining to his daughter what had happened." The site adds, "It was on the third day after the burial that the idea for a novel came to him."
The film is slated to hit theaters on April 19, 2019.
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[H/T The Hollywood Reporter]