Josh Boone To Adapt Stephen King’s THE TALISMAN For Amblin Entertainment
Stand aside, gentle readers: we've got an important Stephen King-related update coming through via Variety:
“Fault in Our Stars and New Mutants director Josh Boone will write Amblin Entertainment’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Talisman. Although he’s currently just set to pen the script, there is a possibility he could eventually come on as a director as well."
Yes, that's right - someone's finally gonna bite the bullet and make a movie out of The Talisman, one of the few Stephen King epics that's never been translated to film. Oh, they've tried over the years (Spielberg himself almost took on the project way back when), but no one's ever quite had the stones to get it off the ground. Looks like Josh Boone - who's also been working on adaptations of King's Revival and The Stand - might be the dude to make it happen.
Here's the thing about The Talisman: on the surface, it probably sounds like the sorta thing someone might want to greenlight in the wake of IT's success - you've got a kid element, a monster element, genuine heart at the center of the story - but in practice, the two couldn't be more dissimilar. The Talisman's a book about a neglected kid who gains the ability to travel to a parallel version of our world (yes, the mythology eventually ties into The Dark Tower; hey, maybe someone will make a Dark Tower movie someday!) where he must then go on a lengthy quest to save the life of his dying mother. The book - co-authored with Peter Straub, it's worth noting - is big and weird and fantastical and I highly recommend it.
But will it make for a good movie? I don't see how you do it properly without splitting the material into two chunks, but I suppose you could streamline it down to its bones and force it into a two-hour frame. Something tells me that won't be Boone's approach here, and we're very eager to hear more of what he has planned for the project (we're also eager to get a look at Boone's New Mutants, which is being pitched as a superhero horror film).
Nothing further to report at this time, but we'll keep you informed as updates roll in. While we're waiting on the next one to arrive - where do you folks stand here? Think The Talisman'll make for a good movie? Two movies? Think they should leave well enough alone? Sound off in the comments below.
