Stephen King’s Revival Adaptation Not Moving Forward With Doctor Sleep Director

Earlier this summer came the news that director Mike Flanagan was going to continue to explore the writing of Stephen King on the big screen and was set to write and direct an adaptation of his 2014 novel Revival. Having previously directed Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, the trifecta of features would have put him in the same league as filmmaker Frank Darabont in terms of how many King stories they’d adapted into movies. In a disappointing update however, Flanagan has confirmed that his version of the movie isn’t happening, albeit in a roundabout way of saying it.

Appearing on the podcast The Company Of The Mad (H/T Cinema Blend), a show about King’s novel The Stand, Flanagan relayed a story about first meeting Josh Boone (director and current executive producer on the new adaptation of The Stand airing on CBS All Access). Flanagan said, “We started emailing because I went on to eBay to buy a limited edition of Revival – a beautiful set of Revival, and Josh was selling it. I bought it, and he emailed me on eBay first when the transaction first started, like, ‘Uhhh, hi.’ ‘Oh my god!’ And so we got to go back and forth about Revival, being a project that Josh was doing first and then I also ended up not doing Revival. So we have that in common; we’ve both been through the ringer on that particular story.”

The writer/director previously spoke about adapting the novel for the screen in an appearance on The Kingcast earlier this summer, saying: “It is relentlessly dark and cynical and I’m enjoying the hell out of that.” He would later ponder on the same show that he wasn’t entirely sure how the production company, Intrepid Pictures, would react to the film’s script or perhaps ask that it be made happier/nicer. Flanagan gave no answer if this was the reason that the film wasn’t happening.

Even without Flanagan’s adaptation of Revival the world will have no shortage of Stephen King adaptations to watch as new versions of ‘Salem’s Lot, The Long Walk, The Tommyknockers, From a Buick 8 and Firestarter are all in various stages of development. Recently announced as well was that acclaimed filmmaker Lynne Ramsay will helm The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon To Be. King also rules television screens with an Overlook Hotel series in the works and a ‘Salem’s Lot prequel series on the way.