Salem's Lot Remake Gets Endorsement From Stephen King Despite Books Changes

Yesterday came word that horror fans didn't want to hear on Halloween, the Warner Bros. Pictures remake of Salem's Lot will reportedly skip theaters and go straight to the Max streaming service. The latest adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot had previously been undated after being removed from Warner Bros. schedule, leaving many horror fans to wonder the fate of the film. After Warner Bros. had previously cancelled fully completed movies, Stephen King fans worried that Salem's Lot might go unseen forever. Though Warner Bros. hasn't confirmed the news that Salem's Lot will be skipping movie theaters for a streaming premiere, the movie just got an even more exciting update, an official endorsement from Stephen King himself.

In a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, Stephen King offered an update on the tone of the Salem's Lot reboot and what makes it work, while also revealing it makes changes from his book that he "doesn't agree with." King wrote, "The Warner Bros remake of SALEM'S LOT, currently shelved, is muscular and involving. It has the feel of 'Old Hollywood,' when a film was given a chance to draw a breath before getting to business. When attention spans were longer, in other words."

He continues, "It feels like a horror movie version of slow-burn movies like THE GREAT ESCAPE. It builds very well. There are diversions from the book I don't agree with, but on the whole, faithful. Best scene: Danny Glick in the hospital, trying to claw down a blood bag. The Glick scene could have been directed by John Carpenter in his prime."

The Warner Bros remake of SALEM'S LOT, currently shelved, is muscular and involving. It has the feel of "Old Hollywood," when a film was given a chance to draw a breath before getting to business. When attention spans were longer, in other words.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) November 1, 2023

Salem's Lot remake cast

The Salem's Lot remake cast includes a stacked roster of names that fans will recognize, with Lewis Pullman (Top Gun: Maverick, Bad Times at the El Royale) starring in the lead role of Ben Mears, a man who returns to his childhood home Jerusalem's Lot while attempting to work on his next novel only to realize that a vampire has taken hold of the town. Other Salem's Lot cast members that have been confirmed include Makenzie Leigh (Gotham, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk) as Susan Norton, Alfre Woodard (Marvel's Luke Cage) as Dr. Cody, Bill Camp (Joker) as Matthew Burke, Pilou Asbæk (Game of Thrones) as Richard Straker, Jordan Preston Carter (DMZ) as Mark Petrie, Spencer Treat Clark (Unbreakable) as Mike Ryerson, plus John Benjamin Hickey (Gossip Girl) as Father Callahan, with Nicholas Crovetti (Big Little Lies) as Danny Glick, and Cade Woodward as Ralph Glick.

Filmmaker Gary Dauberman, who previously cut his Stephen King teeth by adapting IT into the two feature films, wrote and directed the adaptation. Dauberman previously wrote several films in The Conjuring franchise, including directing Annabelle Comes Home.

"It's a scary thing doing these remakes, man. It's like, this and [Top Gun: Maverick], there's such pressure, it's a hard concoction to conjure up to make it successful," Pullman previously told ComicBook.com about the film. "But Gary Dauberman, the director, is really keen on doing justice to the book. But also, the previous adaptation was a two-parter, because it's such a hefty book and there are so many different moving parts and so many characters. So there are some parts where Gary had to press and find what was really at the heart of the movie to keep in, but for the most part, he's really true to the book and keeping a lot of the original dialogue in there. He's a Stephen King hound dog so he doesn't wanna do Stephen dirty."