‘Oculus’ Director Takes On Stephen King’s ‘Gerald’s Game’; ‘Firestarter’ Sequel In The Works At TNT

Box office-wise, if Stephen King were an indie filmmaker, he’d be Wes Anderson. His average unadjusted gross is about $27 million (or $51 million in 2014 dollars), much like Anderson. King leads the lower end of the box office, much like Anderson, and the audience for his movies grow through parody, much like Anderson. However, maybe this will boost that ranking.

There’s news coming out the King’s camp that “Oculus” (which grossed $27 million domestic) director Mike Flanagan will adapt and direct ”Gerald’s Game,” based on King’s bestselling novel. Flanagan and his writing partner Jeff Howard wrote the script, and Trevor Macy‘s Intrepid Pictures will produce.

“Gerald’s Game” is about a woman who accidentally kills her husband while she is handcuffed to the bed as part of a bondage game and lets the voices inside her head take over when she realizes that she is trapped with little hope of rescue. Flanagan said “Gerald’s Game” is one of the “most intense” and “compelling novels I’ve ever read.” He goes on to call it a dream project and that “Trevor and I are very excited to help translate that experience for an audience.” We’ll see how that goes.

The other King project in the works is a little more questionable. There’s second sequel to King’s 1980 novel “Firestarter,” this one titled “The Shop” on the horizon. SyFy (the Sci-Fi Channel at the time) created the first sequel to the 1984 film way back in 2002, and it sucked. TNT just announced at their Upfront that they’ll produce this reboot to the storyline that didn’t call for one sequel, much less two. And the plot goes thusly:

[The story] centers on the titular organization that once exploited the pyrokinetic abilities of a young girl named Charlie McGee. Twenty years after bringing The Shop to its knees, Charlie has been tracked down by one of its former members, Henry Talbot, who reveals that The Shop is alive and badder than ever, unleashing terrifying new entities into the world. It’s now up to Talbot, Charlie and others like her to find The Shop and destroy it for good.

Clearly TNT hopes the ratings for “The Shop” shape up more like NBC’s “Sound of Music” and not their “Rosemary’s Baby” reboot. But to get those kind of numbers, TNT will need to enlist an all-singing, all-dancing cast of thousands to bring “The Shop” to life. 

And lastly, King himself will pop up in a cameo in CBS‘ “Under The Dome.” It’s part of a broader effort for CBS to get young people stoked about the show, which will include the following plan: “This season of the series will include a digital-only character who is able to communicate with characters trapped in the dome” so the show can “reach out to particularly our young audience and embrace this ‘transmedia.’ ” Scary. [Deadline/Shock Till You Drop/Vulture]