Stephen King & Joe Hill’s THROTTLE Is Headed To HBO Max

Here's an interesting development, via Deadline:

"HBO Max is in the early development stage of a feature adaptation for the Throttle novella, which was co-written by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill, who is the NYT bestselling author of The Fireman and Strange Weather. Leigh Dana Jackson, a co-executive producer on the Netflix series Raising Dion, will write the screenplay, which will be produced by David S. Goyer and Keith Levine through their Phantom Four label.

Throttle follows a father and son led biker gang who get terrorized by a big rig truck on an isolated stretch of the American desert."

Speaking as someone who considers themselves something of an authority on Stephen King*, I'm embarrassed to say that I've never actually read THROTTLE. In fact, if we're being honest, I'm not sure I was even aware of it before right now. Oh, I knew Joe Hill had a book called FULL THROTTLE, and I knew Hill and King had collaborated on a comic book series called ROAD RAGE (which, as it turns out, was a four-part series that adapted THROTTLE and Richard Matheson's DUEL), but this particular novella had escaped my attention until now. I will turn in my Stephen King badge and Joe Hill gun immediately, Chief. 

As for the project: sounds good to us! King and Hill doing their take on DUEL? What's not to like? This project also extends the working relationship between King and the folks at HBO, who enjoyed a good deal of success together with their recent adaptation of THE OUTSIDER (which may or may not be headed for a second season). We would very much like to see this relationship continue. Who knows? Maybe one day it'll lead to a DARK TOWER series on HBO Max. 

Nothing further to report on THROTTLE at this time, but stay tuned for further developments as they roll in.

* = Speaking of, be aware that my colleague Eric Vespe and I will soon be launching a Stephen King podcast called THE KINGCAST. Each episode finds us tackling a different King short story or novel, as well as the film or TV adaptation that it inspired. The hook? Our guests get to pick whichever adaptation they'd like to talk about. Episode one, THE RUNNING MAN (with special guest Kumail Nanjiani), will land on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and BIRTH.MOVIES.DEATH. very soon. Our guest list is stacked, the show's entertaining as hell, and we think the BMD crowd's gonna enjoy it. Stay tuned for that in the very near future!