Stephen King fans, rejoice! Not only has the upcoming movie adaptation of the author’s classic short story The Monkey finished filming, but a fantastic ensemble cast has been assembled for this one. Not to mention that Oz Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Gretel & Hansel) is in the director’s chair. Oh, and James Wan (The Conjuring, Insidious) is producing the film. We’re talking about a murderer’s row of talent here.
According to Deadline, production wrapped on the film a week ago. So this one is already in the can. The outlet also reveals that the full cast includes Theo James (The White Lotus), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), Elijah Wood (The Lord Of The Rings), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Colin O’Brien (Wonka), Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends) and Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek). That is an impressive ensemble, to be certain. The synopsis for the film reads as follows:
“In The Monkey, when twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them.”
The short story in question was originally written in 1980 but was most famously contained in King’s 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. In addition to Wan, Michael Clear, Jason Cloth, Dave Caplan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Chris Ferguson are on board as producers. Fred Berger, Peter Luo, Nancy Xu and John Friedberg serve as executive producers. Black Bear International is behind the production and handled sales of distribution rights at Cannes this year. No word yet on who will be handling distribution, but stay tuned as we’ll surely be learning more on that front sooner rather than later. Perkins, who is also behind this summer’s much-anticipated Longlegs, also penned the screenplay.
This is just one of many, many King adaptations that horror fans can look forward to. Mike Flanagan has The Life of Chuck on the way, with Lionsgate looking to finally make The Long Walk movie that has been stuck in development hell for years. Not to mention the long-delayed Salem’s Lot film that will finally be coming to Max later this year. We can now add this one to the ever-growing list of Stephen King movies to look forward to.
The Monkey does not yet have a release date but stay tuned.
