Netflix Adaptation of Stephen King's Mr. Harrigan's Phone Reveals Cast
During their second annual "Blumfest," Blumhouse Productions announced the cast for the upcoming feature film adaptation of Stephen King's Mr. Harrigan's Phone. Confirmed to star in the film will be IT and Knives Out star Jaeden Martell alongside Invasion of the Body Snatchers' star Donald Sutherland, who will play the titular character. John Lee Hancock, director of The Little Things and The Highwaymen, will write and direct the adaptation which is being produced by Blumhouse and Ryan Murphy. Production on the film is scheduled to begin this month and will premiere on the streaming service sometime in 2022.
Published as part of the If It Bleeds collection of Novellas, Mr. Harrigan's Phone follows a young boy in Maine that befriends the retired and titular Mr. Harrigan, working for him around the house into his youth and eventually buying him a smart phone. After Mr. Harrigan dies he places his phone in his pocket before the funeral, and receives a mysterious reply after leaving a voice mail for him one night. Blumhouse Television's Chris McCumber and Jeremy Gold along with Scott Greenberg will executive produce the film adaptation as well.
Mr. Harrigan's Phone will mark the latest Stephen King adaptation from Blumhouse which just recently wrapped production on a reboot of Firestarter. Blumhouse is also working on an adaptation of The Breathing Method from Sinister director Scott Derrickson. If it were up to Jason Blum however he'd have more telling us one adaptation he's eager to make.
"We didn't get it, but I'd love to do The Dead Zone. That would be cool, to reboot that in some way would be cool," Blum confirmed with ComicBook.com in a new interview. "We don't have it, I know we don't have it. It's sad that we don't have it but we don't."
As opposed to other Stephen King books which have their rights snatched up for adaptation as one, If It Bleeds had the rights to all four of its stories split up across multiple parties, though Netflix will be home to three out of the four. In addition to Mr. Harrigan's Phone, the story Rat has been picked up by Ben Stiller who will apparently produce, direct, and star; and The Life Of Chuck has been picked up by Darren Aronofsky's Protozoa, currently only attached to produce the adaptation. The titular "If It Bleeds" story has not seemingly been optioned by a production company as of yet.
(Cover photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images for Warner Bros.)
