The Tommyknockers feature film is coming

[CyberGhostface]

http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/nbc-developing-hillary-clinton-miniseries-starring-diane-lane-rosemarys-baby-tommyknockers/

Stephen King’s Tommyknockers is based on the renown author’s chilling 1987 novel about how the residents of a small Maine town deal with what they believe is an alien spacecraft that has landed nearby. Executive producers are Frank Konigsberg and Larry Sanitsky. Emmy Award winner Yves Simoneau (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) is attached to direct.

[Dan]

That will teach me to read fast. I thought the series was going to star Hillary Clinton.

[pathoftheturtle]

This could work.
Cool.

[Bryant Burnette]

"That has landed nearby"?

That doesn't sound right.

[fearless-freak]

didnt they already do a Tommyknockers movie?

[Randall Flagg]

didnt they already do a Tommyknockers movie?
A TV miniseries deal. It was terrible. Worse than the book.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106156/?ref_=sr_1

[jhanic]

One thing about the remake. It can only go up in quality. (I hope!)

John

[fearless-freak]

almost as bad as The Langoliers?

[herbertwest]

miniseries as the one that already existed or serie? it's not clear...

[Merlin1958]

One thing about the remake. It can only go up in quality. (I hope!)

John

Amen!!!

[Priest]

didnt they already do a Tommyknockers movie?
A TV miniseries deal. It was terrible. Worse than the book.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106156/?ref_=sr_1

and it was imho not an easy job to be worse then the book :D

[CyberGhostface]

I have to wonder why out of all of the King books out there Tommyknockers is the one they'd adapt.

[ur2ndbiggestfan]

I agree the movie was awful, but the book wasn't too bad. I kind of liked it.

[Dan]

I liked the book. Really a good screenplay and director can make almost any story an enjoyable movie. Likewise a poorly written screenplay or terrible director would make a stinker.

[Bryant Burnette]

I have to wonder why out of all of the King books out there Tommyknockers is the one they'd adapt.

I'd guess it's cause they own the rights to do it. That's somebody looking at the ratings for Under the Dome and saying, "Hey, go rummage through the files and see what we own by Stephen King!"

I like the novel. No reason it can't make a decent miniseries, although I'd hope they're looking at doing it over more than four hours. Four hours will not get the job done.

[Brice]

Yes, please go ahead and remake it though I liked the book , but fucking leave Rosemay's Baby alone. :(

[dnemec]

Yes, please go ahead and remake it though I liked the book , but fucking leave Rosemay's Baby alone. :(

I was thinking the same thing, Brice. Rosemary's Baby was a great film, and Polanski did an excellent job of keeping true to the novel. I think anything they do with it will just be worse.

[Ari_Racing]

I kinda liked the miniseries. It wasn't that bad!

And I loved the book.

[pathoftheturtle]

Miniseries: bad, but could have been worse. Decent cast.
Novel: good, but could have been better. Decent characters.
In other words, so-so has been done. I'd rather see them take risks and end up with a big FAIL than see them produce something almost as good as the earlier adaptation.

[mae]

https://screenrant.com/tommyknockers-adaptation-stephen-king-james-wan/

Stephen King’s novel The Tommyknockers is coming to the screen in a new adaptation from the producers of The Conjuring and IT. Last year was a banner year for King adaptations, headed up by the movie version of IT, which grossed more than $700 million worldwide. The year also saw feature adaptations of King’s The Dark Tower, Gerald’s Game, and 1922, as well as series versions of Mr. Mercedes and The Mist. And the Stephen King adaptation train looks like it won’t be losing steam any time soon.

In 2018, Hulu will debut Castle Rock, a series inspired by multiple King works set in the titular Maine town. And already in the works for 2019 are a remake of Pet Sematary, an adaptation of the novella In the Tall Grass, and of course the IT sequel, IT: Chapter Two. In keeping with the novel’s time-spanning story, the second IT film will leap ahead 30 years and feature adult versions of the Losers’ Club kids from the first movie. Now, fans can add a new feature film adaptation of The Tommyknockers to the list of future Stephen King projects.

THR reports that The Conjuring director and producer James Wan has teamed with IT producer Roy Lee to assemble the project together with the novel’s rights holder, producer Larry Sanitsky. Studios and digital streamers including Netflix received the trio’s proposal this week. Sanitsky discussed his thoughts about the book and its meaning, and why it makes sense to tackle another adaptation today:

“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. 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.”

Published in 1987, The Tommyknockers tells the story of a small Maine town (of course) whose residents’ minds gradually become taken over by an alien entity. Only an alcoholic poet named Gard can see what’s really going on, thanks to the semi-immunity granted by the steel plate in his head. King would later disavow the novel, calling it “awful” and claiming he was in an alcoholic haze at the time of its writing. Nevertheless, the book was a huge best-seller, like most of the author’s other works. ABC aired a miniseries adaptation in 1993, starring Jimmy Smits and Marg Helgenberger. NBC at one point was set to produce a new Tommyknockers miniseries version, but nothing has come of that yet.

The Tommyknockers book, like a lot of King’s works, is arguably a bit of an overwrought mess. But even lesser King works are gold in the current market. And even with all its faults, The Tommyknockers does have a fairly compelling sci-fi/horror plot at its heart that, if handled correctly, could make for an commercially intriguing movie, especially with a pair of producers like Wan and Lee working on the movie behind the scenes.

[Tommy]

I'm excited, could be really good. :thumbsup:

[mae]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5owHG4ON9g

[RichardX]

Tommyknockers benefits from low expectations. As one of King's less popular works, almost anything watchable will be deemed a success. And in the right hands it can be made well. Hopefully it doesn't go the way of Cell or Dreamcatcher though.

[Tommy]

The guy in that vid says that The Tommyknockers is King's second highest-selling book behind IT. Is there a page somewhere that lists King's work by sell rankings?

[mae]

http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/stephen-kings-the-tommyknockers-heads-to-universal-after-bidding-war

With the work of Stephen King red-hot these days in Hollywood, it was still a bit of a surprise to learn that a new adaptation of one of his less-acclaimed novels, The Tommyknockers, was making the rounds to studios and streaming outlets.

But not only has the success of last year's It put King solidly back on the industry radar, the involvement of James Wan as a producer and possible director on the new Tommyknockers has sweetened the deal even more.

Deadline reports that Universal Pictures has acquired the project, winning a bidding war that found the studio competing against Sony and Netflix. Wan is producing alongside Roy Lee and Larry Sanitsky, the latter of whom was an executive producer on the two-part 1993 miniseries that was first made from King's book.

King's 1987 novel was one of his early full-on forays into science fiction, as the residents of a small Maine town called Haven begin to come under the malign influence of a mysterious object buried in the woods. The object turns out to be a long-dormant alien spacecraft that is transforming the townspeople into beings like its occupants.

A sci-fi tale with horror overtones, The Tommyknockers was (according to King) inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space and also bears some resemblance to the classic British TV serial (and later film) Quatermass and the Pit.

King himself has not spoken favorably of the book over the years, admitting that it was written at the height of his addiction to drugs and alcohol. He told Rolling Stone in 2014 that The Tommyknockers was "an awful book. That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act."

With It earning $700 milion at the worldwide box office last year (and the sequel coming in 2019), studios are clamoring to repeat that success with other King properties. Coincidentally, the success of the previous 1990 miniseries version of It probably provided the momentum for The Tommyknockers to follow on TV three years later (and since that was followed by the TV miniseries of The Stand in 1994, let's hope that history can repeat itself on the big screen).

James Wan, meanwhile, is in post-production on Aquaman and could potentially direct The Tommyknockers after that if he decides he wants to do more than produce. The next spinoff from his The Conjuring series, The Nun, comes out July 13.

[Ricky]

The Tommyknockers is one of my least favorite King books, so I'm not really jumping up and down for a new film. I'll probably see it, though.

[Jon]

I would welcome a remake. Likely one of my top 5 King books. But then I was at the height of my addiction to drugs and alcohol. Maybe I'll do a reread and read the pages in chronological order this time.

[TravelinJack]

I do think if done right, this could be a pretty fun movie. Could make it pretty creepy too.

[mae]

http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/967931-exorcist-showrunner-to-pen-stephen-kings-the-tommyknockers-movie

Variety reports that former The Exorcist showrunner Jeremy Slater is set to write the screenplay for Universal Pictures’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers. James Wan and Michael Clear (The Nun, Annabelle: Creation) will be teaming up with Roy Lee (IT) to produce the film.

“I’m pretty sure this is the first book I ever bought with my own money. It was 1988 and I was 10 years old. I’d borrowed other King novels from various friends and libraries, but this was the first one that was MINE,” Slater wrote on Twitter. “In meetings I always joke that I was raised by the two Stephens—King and Spielberg—but that’s not far from the truth. While other kids were playing sports or doing whatever cool kids do, I was spending the night in the Overlook, or hanging out in the sewers beneath Derry….Now, thirty years later, I’m beyond thrilled to be part of the team bringing THE TOMMYKNOCKERS to life. It just feels…right, you know? Like coming home…I can’t wait for you to visit Haven. It’s a hell of a town. Just don’t go in the woods.”

The 1987 horror novel follows the story of writer Bobbi Anderson who has discovered an alien object that was buried in the woods near her home which turned out to be an alien spaceship. The Tommyknockers are the aliens who are inhabiting the spaceship. Her discovery has lead to many unfortunate consequences that severely affected the residents of the small town of Haven in Maine.

Last April, it was reported that Universal has won the rights to the Stephen King novel beating out Sony Pictures and Netflix. Wan from Atomic Monster and Lee from Vertigo are joining producer Larry Sanitsky (the 1993 TV miniseries based on The Tommyknockers) to work on the film.

The Tommyknockers is the second best-selling Stephen King book in its hardcover release having even outsold IT. The previous Tommyknockers miniseries starred Jimmy Smits and Marg Helgenberger. There was talk of doing a miniseries version of the book back in 2013 for NBC but it failed to materialize.

Many of Stephen King’s books are currently being adapted into features films and TV series such as Castle Rock, The Bone Church, Doctor Sleep, In the Tall Grass and Pet Sematary.