After a series of adaptations like The Shining, It, and Pet Sematary Stephen King gets a movie adaptation once again, this time in the form of Salem’s Lot produced by the New line Cinema. The Star of this upcoming venture Lewis Pullman describes what he thinks about Hollywood and King’s novels.
‘It’s Hard To Condense’:
In an exclusive interview with ScreenRant, the Press Play actor said that making a Stephen King adaptation is scary for Hollywood. According to Lewis Pullman, Hollywood is afraid to adapt King’s Books mainly due to their length. The Books are too long and it gets extremely difficult for the makers to condense them and it is even similar to this Salem’s Lot which is also very long:
“Salem’s Lot is just one of the coolest books, and I think there’s a reason why it hasn’t been made into a feature. It’s been made into these two-part series, but it’s such a long book. It’s hard to condense that into a feature-length film”
Further, Lewis also continued to explain the difficulties faced by a Stephen King adaptation to be its Legacy.
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The Legacy of Stephen King:
With 64 novels and approximately 200 short stories to his name, Stephen King has established himself as a brand now. His popularity is worldwide and the readers love his works and that’s where the main complications arise. Many of the movies fail to maintain the legacy of their source materials and get subjected to widespread criticism.
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Previously also many of his works got bad adaptations and the fans were quick to reject them. Even King himself criticized some of them. So by the statement of Lewis Pullman, it can be concluded that Hollywood is also aware that the stakes are extremely high in the case of these movies:
“Talk about scary for two reasons! Because it’s Stephen King, and the legacy is strong for a reason. And then also the material.”
Pullman also stated that the material is not a child’s play and also poses a difficulty for the makers.
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Faith in the Director:
At the end of the interview, even after so many difficulties and problems faced by a Stephen King adaptation Lewis Pullman has full faith in his writer-director Gary Dauberman who had earlier been associated with horror projects like Annabelle, It Chapter 1 & 2, and The Nun. In the interview Pullman said:
” but [writer-director] Gary Dauberman has really tapped into the vein of this genre.”
He further added to his praise:
” It feels like he has liberty to play with it a little bit and reinvent it.”
At the end of the day, it can’t be denied that the ultimate outcome of any movie is totally based on its director and makers no matter how much longer the source material is.
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Salem’s Lot is set to hit the theaters on 9th September.
