Stephen King’s THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON Is Headed To The Big Screen (Again)

You might recall, years ago, the announcement that George A. Romero would be bringing Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon to the silver screen. That adaptation never quite got off the ground, and once Romero passed away in 2017 we all assumed it was well and truly put to bed. Not so, says a new report over on THR. 

According to them, Chris Romero (George's former wife) is teaming up with IT producer Roy Lee and Vertigo Films' Jon Berg to resurrect the project. Even as we speak, the hunt is on for a writer who might be able to adapt King's 1999 novel. For those of you unfamiliar with the source material, THR has a solid breakdown of the plot:

"Tom Gordon tells of a young girl named Trisha McFarland who gets lost while hiking with her recently divorced mother and brother in the woods. Nine years old and scared of the dark, the girl winds up stumbling through the woods for nine days, wandering farther and farther from civilization even as she tries to make her way back home. As she walks, dehydration, hunger and exhaustion cause her to hallucinate, talking to several people, including her idol, a baseball player named Tom Gordon.

But she also begins to believe that she’s being stalked by a supernatural beast known as The God of the Lost, and soon her ordeal becomes a test of both her sanity and her ability to fight for her life."

It is here that I will confess that The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is one of the moderate blind spots in my otherwise extensive database of Stephen King knowledge. I have a vague memory of reading it at the time and not really enjoying it, plus another dim memory of the novel being retooled as a pop-up book at one point. I think I remember how the plot shakes out, but I can hardly be trusted to remember things from three weeks ago, much less twenty years ago. As such, I will refrain from offering any real opinions here as to whether or not The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon will make for a good movie. Maybe?

This is just the latest in a long line of King adaptations being planned in Hollywood. In addition to this, we've also got a new Salem's Lot en route, the very first From a Buick 8 adaptation, a film based on The Long Walk from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark director André Øvredal, a new version of The Tommyknockers, Mike Flanagan's Doctor Sleep and Vincenzo Natali's In The Tall Grass to look forward to. It is, as always, a very good time to be a Stephen King fan. 

Nothing further to report at this time, but we'll let you know as further The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon updates roll in. Stay tuned.