A major feature adaptation of Stephen King’s sci-fi horror The Tommyknockers is being developed, with James Wan and It producer Roy Lee on board to produce. Wan reportedly may also be in line to direct the film, which Universal won the rights to in a bidding war that included Netflix.
King’s 1987 novel is sorely in need of a worthy adaptation, having become a lacklustre two-part miniseries in 1993, a fate that also befell a couple of his other major works around the time.
The book is set in a small town in Maine (aren’t they all?), where a group of locals unearth a huge alien spacecraft out in the woods. A gas given off by their discovery begins to infect the townspeople, giving them enhanced mental abilities, as well as a tendency towards violence. Immune to the gas’s influence due to a steel plate in his head, alcoholic poet James Eric Gardener aims to stop the spread of violence and rid the town of the spacecraft.
Wan and Lee will produce via their respective companies Atomic Monster and Vertigo, along with Larry Sanitsky, who executive produced the 1993 miniseries. Universal have dated the film for a 2020 release.
Words: Kevan Farrow (@KevanX)
