In an article about King's retirement Susan Moldow, his publisher at Scribner, who is skeptical about King actually retiring commented the retirement with the following statement:
"That rumor is older than Methusaleh, and yet he keeps writing and publishing," she said in a phone interview Monday. "I've heard him describe a novel that I know he wants to write, that isn't a part of the 'Dark Tower' series and that doesn't seem to duplicate anything he's done before. And since he's described it to me, it would be harsh and cruel for him to withhold it from me."
Night Surf is making it's World Premiere at the SCREAMFEST Film Festival in Los Angeles on October 19th at the Laemmle Fairfax Theaters. Get more info here: Main festival site and Ticket info.
Stephen King, Sam Shepard and Martin Scorsese are among the dozens of authors and other artists appearing this month at the third annual New Yorker Festival. The three-day event, which takes place throughout the city, runs Sept. 27-29.
Apparently there is a 7th sequel to Children of the Corn on the way. Miramax/Buena Vista is now planning to release Children of the Corn 8. No release date has been set and the movie is still in development.
There is still hope for The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon as a movie. Darkworlds talked with George A. Romero at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors and here is what he had to say:
Darkworlds caught up with legendary horror director George Romero (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE DARK HALF, BRUISER) at the 2002 Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in LA. During a lengthy interview (video of which will soon be available on Darkworlds), talk turned to Romero’s upcoming collaboration with best-selling horror scribe Stephen King, as well as Romero’s experiences working with King in the past. (Interview for Darkworlds.com conducted by Greg Stacy.)
DW: What can you tell us about THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON? Is it a horror film?
Romero: Well, it’s got some scary elements in it. It’s about a little girl that gets lost in the woods. It’s (based on King’s) novel, it was a best-seller 2 or 3 years ago. Tom Gordon was at the time (of the story) a real pitcher, he was a guy they brought in to save the games for the Red Sox, and Steve’s really an avid Red Sox fan. So, Tom is this girl’s hero.
DW: How did you get involved with the project?
Romero: I just loved the book. I called Stephen, and he said cool.
DW: THE DARK HALF was (one of the best) Stephen King adaptations. How closely did you work with King on that?
Romero: Steve doesn’t sit over your shoulder. He lets you run with it. So, it was great. He had approval in the end… I guess he dug it, because he didn’t change a thing. He just let it wail. I love doing (King adaptations). I think (THE DARK HALF) is a pretty good adaptation, myself!
Meridian Writing (on BBC radio) airs a special King-program this week. Joining Harriett Gilbert to answer why King's books are so loved are the writers Neil Gaiman and Muriel Gray, and a fan from Sweden who runs his own Stephen King website. Yes, your right, the Swede is I, Lilja.
Los Angeles, CA (August 21, 2002) - The official limited release of Paranoid, the first Stephen King "Dollar-Baby" to receive permission to be released on the Internet, is about to come to an end. This marks the final week in which Paranoid will be able to be downloaded or viewed online.
The 8-minute adaptation has received rave reviews during it's limited, eight month engagement across the World Wide Web.
Paranoid made its World Wide Web debut January 25th on iFilm.com (a privately held company based in Hollywood, CA) and quickly gained popularity, amassing more than 21,000 views in its first week and climbing to the #7 slot for most popular short film on the entertainment network's vast website of more than 80,000 films. To date Paranoid has racked up more than 35,000 views from iFilm.com and more than 6,000 downloads of the official "hi-rez" version from www.paranoidthemovie.com.
Adakin Productions' most recent project The Night Before, is currently in post-production. A trailer of the film is now available online at www.adakin.com/nightbefore.html.
Stephen King's self-dubbed "Dollar-Deal" is a policy the writer established early in his career to grant young filmmaker's the permission to make a movie out of any of his short stories as long as the resulting film will not be exhibited commercially without his approval. For this one-time right, King asks only for a copy of the finished film and the grand total of one dollar. The most famous "Dollar-Baby" (as King dubs the finished products and the filmmakers who create them) is Frank Darabont's adaptation of The Woman in the Room (released in the early 1980s on Interglobal Home Video). Darabont later went on to adapt the multi-Academy Award nominated films The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.
For more information on Paranoid, visit www.paranoidthemovie.com.
King will be appearing at The Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York on Wednesday Sep. 25th. Tickets go on sale on the 20th, and are $20 each. He will be signing copies of From a Buick 8.
Cat's Eye release 10/1/02 English, French and Spanish subtitles, commentary by Lewis Teague, trailer
It release 10/1/02 English, French and Spanish subtitles, commentary by Tommy Lee Wallace,
Richard Thomas, John Ritter, Tim Reid and Dennis Christopher
The Shining release 1/7/03 English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Bahasa, Thai and Korean subtitles, commentary by Stephen King, Steven Weber, Mick Garris, Cynthia Garris, Mark Carliner, Bill Corso, Boyd Shermis, Patrick McMahon and Shelly Johnson and additional/deleted scenes with optional director's commentary.
Fangoria reports that there are plans for The Night Flier 2.
"There's talk of NIGHT FLIER 2," Pavia reveals. "I would write and direct again, with [original author] Stephen King giving his blessing on the story. Miguel Ferrer's Richard Dees character won't be in it, though I did toy with the idea of bringing Dees back as a TERMINATOR-style servant to [lead vampire] Dwight Renfield. Renfield and Katherine Blair [played by Julie Entwisle, now Pavia's wife, in the original film] will be returning."
The Rock Bottom Remainders has five tour dates scheduled.
November 22, 2002 - Scotty's Landing, Coconut Grove, FL
November 23, 2002 - Bayside Marketplace, Miami, FL
April 22, 2003 - Seattle, WA
April 24, 2003 - San Francisco, CA
April 25, 2003 - Los Angeles, CA (part of LA Book Festival)
Bag of Bones has now been listed on King's official site. Here is what they say:
Bag of Bones
Major Motion Picture Release
Film rights for Bag of Bones have been optioned. MGM will be distributing this as a theater release. Bruce Willis is the Producer.
John Mellencamp recently did an interview and in the introduction the following can be read:
Mellencamp, who co-founded the Farm Aid benefit concerts with Willie Nelson and Neil Young in 1985, is now working on a project with best-selling author Stephen King. King is writing the book, Mellencamp the music for a theatre presentation about an American family.
This isn't 100% correct though. King is NOT writing a book, only the play. There aren't any plans for a book.
Here are the two questions that concerns King:
Q: Peaceful World took on a new resonance for listeners, obviously, after Sept. 11. Have the events affected your writing since then?
Mellencamp: I haven't written since then, except for a few small smatterings for a musical I'm working on with Steve King. As you may or may not know, Peaceful World was written a few years before Sept. 11. I think all songs that are not just pop throwaways would take on a new meaning after such a tragedy.
Q: What's it like collaborating with Stephen King? Can you tell us any more about the project? And I hear King has his own rock band -- you ever give him any lessons?
Mellencamp: Steve is an honest gentleman, a person of integrity, and has written a beautiful story. Hopefully, we can complete this project before this time next year. But he is busy and so am I. And as far as his rock band goes, well -- I tuned his guitar once and Steve certainly looks cool.
BANGOR — On a steamy Monday afternoon, 6-year-old Keely Shorette and her visiting cousins piled out of the family car in hopes of escaping the heat at the city’s crowded west-side pool.
Across town, the city’s most famous literary couple offered a cool idea of their own.
Flanked by city officials in an air-conditioned City Hall on Monday afternoon, authors Stephen and Tabitha King announced they will donate $1.1 million to help build a new public pool more than three times the size of the current pool at Hayford Park.
It was a walk down Union Street on a steamy afternoon that convinced the couple a new facility was in order.
“All we saw was a lot of heads bobbing up and down,” said Stephen King of the scene at the popular swimming pool that serves hundreds of children on a typical summer day. “We thought maybe there was something we could do to remedy that situation.”
The new pool, expected to be completed by next spring, will be 12,000 square feet with a children’s area, a general swim area and four-lane lap and exercise pool. A separate pool will be constructed with water slides.
The current facility, which will be closed upon the completion of the new facility, is about 3,700 square feet.
Upon hearing the news of the larger pool, a squealing Keely Shorette jumped up and down as her two cousins, visiting from North Carolina, made a beeline across the parking lot to the already bustling pool.
“Fun! Fun! Fun!” she squealed.
At the Kings’ request, the new pool will be named in honor of Beth Pancoe, a Bangor High School graduate who died of leukemia in 1999.
Pancoe’s father, Michael Pancoe, held up an 8-by-10-inch portrait of his daughter, once a diver on the Bangor High School swim team who died during her sophomore year at Northwestern University.
“It was kind of her turf,” said Pancoe, a Bangor radiologist, of the park behind the family’s former home on West Broadway, where the Kings also reside. “This is a very magnanimous thing to do.”
Construction could begin this fall, said city officials, who praised the Kings’ latest gift.
“It is another example of the continuing commitment of Stephen and Tabitha King to support their community and to invest directly in our young citizens,” Bangor Mayor Michael Crowley said.
Over the years, the Kings have donated millions of dollars to various causes and projects in and around the city, including the Maine Discovery Museum, the Bangor Public Library and Cyr Family Field House at the Orono-Old Town YMCA.
The couple’s latest gift will pay for most of the $1.5 million project, with the rest coming from the city’s undesignated fund balance and possibly a $150,000 bond tentatively slated to repair the existing pool, according to city officials.
The new pool will be located down the hill from the existing facility, which will be removed and replaced with a picnic area, according to city officials.
The new complex will be located next to the Hayford Park playground just beyond the left-field fence at Mansfield Stadium, yet another gift from the Kings.
Rob Zombie, co producer of "We're a Happy Family," a tribute album for the Ramones, said that horror novelist/Ramones fan Stephen King has agreed to write the liner notes for the album, which will be released on September 17. Contributors to the album include: Eddie Vedder, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Marilyn Manson, U2, Garbage and Kiss. Full story: http://www.vh1.com/news/stories/1455318.jhtml.
Finally there is a guide for all of you out there that wants to know how to spot a 1st ed. of King's books. Bev Vincent has put together a great list and you can now find it on King's official site.
BIG NEWS!!! It has now been confirmed! King's miniseries version of The Shining is finally going to be released on DVD. King has done a commentary and the DVD will be through Warner Home Video. The DVD will also have interviews with Mick Garris, Steven Weber, and others. It is scheduled for either the end of this year or more likely early 2003. On Halloween 2002. Warner will also release the DVD versions of IT and Cat's Eye.
Ridley Pearson reports in his latest newsletter that he and Dave Barry are busy planning the Remainders' April 2003 West Coast Tour (Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles) with America Scores.
As reported earlier the short film Strawberry Spring will be shown at the International Cinematographers Guild 6th Annual Film Showcase. Screenings will take place in Loa Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, Orlando, Miami, San Francisco, Dallas and at the Cannes International Film Festival. You can read my review of the movie here and see productions stills here.
Here is a recent interview with Peter Straub from www.scifi.com in which he talks about the future for The Talisman on the big screen.
There's been talk of turning The Talisman into a miniseries over the years. Any progress?
Straub: I have some very interesting news about that.
The Talisman was bought by Universal as a vehicle for Steven Spielberg. Universal bought it because Spielberg told them to. In 1984, Spielberg had tremendous clout. So they bought, gave it to him and he lost interest. It was no longer the sort of thing he felt he wanted to do. He wanted to do more mainstream, more worthy projects. It vanished.
The miniseries idea was floated. Spielberg liked the idea of having a miniseries. He had people in mind to direct it. It went through various revisions and that died.
Five or six years later, Kathleen Kennedy and Spielberg were back to being partners, decided once again to do it as a miniseries for ABC. That sounded like it would work (Mick Garris had written a screenplay and had planned to direct the project). They had a very good script and that died.
Now there's a friend of mine, who is a very, very good writer. I won't name him. But he told me he got a call from his agent, who asked if he would be interested in doing a screenplay for a movie of The Talisman. My friend said, "Who would direct it?" And his agent said, "Spielberg." My friend said, "Yeah, I'd like to give that a crack." Who knows, it might happen. I would be very, very pleased to see that particular combination.
The Talisman was re-released shortly before Black House. Both novels ended up on the best-seller list at the same time. Were you surprised that there is still a lot of interest for The Talisman?
Straub: It was very gratifying to see that. Random House was especially gratified because they had sold a lot more copies of the new version of The Talisman then they had expected to, both in hardback and paperback. It was warming and rewarding the book would get a whole new audience all over again. I don't think that happens very much.
I had very mixed feelings about The Talisman for a long time. But when I read it in preparation for starting work again with Stephen King on Black House, I surprised myself on how much I liked it. I thought it was really, really a nice book.
Did the Internet and electronic media make the collaboration of Black House easier?
Straub: Yeah, that's right. Though we had one of the first modems in the early '80s. The modems were big machines with telephones on top of them. You had to dial the number, we didn't have hard disks then. The floppys were like 78 records. This was before Windows, so you had to punch in a certain DOS code. Then you could hear your computer make these digesting sounds. Grumble, click, growl. It went on for half an hour while it sent a hundred pages.
When I got the pages from Steve [King] I could see them come onto the empty floppy. Line by line down the page of my monitor. They scrolled by past, but you could still read them.
There were all sorts of glitches in codes. He was using a Wang and I was using an IBM. They had different codes for italics, for bold, all that kind of thing. Even for paragraphing. We had to figure out little symbols to use in place of the ordinary symbols and inform the machine that those symbols were codes: italic, indent, etc.
After I wrote the whole thing, I'd then do a global search and replace for italic, quotation marks. And Steve would do a reverse global replace.
This time around, of course, it was much, much easier. It took seconds to send 100 pages through the Internet. It is vastly more convenient.
King has a very short article in the April 22/29 issue of The New Yorker called Cone Head which reprises the tale he tells about his close encounter with some parking cones.
The International Cinematographers Guild (ICG) has named the finalists in its Sixth Annual Film Showcase competition. Among them was Dave Rutherford for Strawberry Spring. The nine films will premiere on Sunday, May 5, at the Directors Guild of America (DGA) in Los Angeles.
Strawberry Spring will also be shown at Cannes film festival later this year.
The Dead Zone will be released on DVD in the UK. It will feature a chunky booklet with a reproduced version of several pages of the original script (unused opening to the film which was Johnny's accident as a boy) and extensive liner notes. It also features the uncut version of Frank Dodd's suicide, theatrical trailer and commentary by Kim Newman and Stephen Jones. It is also presented in anemographic widescreen.
On Thursday the 14th MTV aired episode 66 of their show Celebrity Deathmatch and in one of the three matches that took place in that episode King fought Harry Potter's creator JK Rowling.
Some time in to the fight Rowling, after casting spells and flying around on her broomstick for a few minutes, killed King with a huge lightning bolt. King's injured leg came back to life though and finished off Rowling. The winner was Stephen King's right leg. Here is a clip of a part of the match.
King comments on his retirement rumors on the official site.
"When asked on a recent episode of The View about his plans to retire, Stephen said that he has enough projects to keep him busy for the next 2 years and that he'll make a decision about retiring then. Don't worry, folks, finishing The Dark Tower books is first on the "to do list" during this next 2 years."
In an FAQ at Ain't it cool News they reported the following sad news about the movie version of The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon.
In the course of the Q & A, I found out that "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" doesn't have enough star-power potential; there just aren't enough 12 year-old girl actresses who have drawing power. So that film might never get made. I was forlorn, and felt like vomiting. Man, George and Stephen King, when collaborating, produce some fun stuff (come on, how can anybody forget, "Thanks for the ride, lady...thanks for the ride!" You know, Creepshow II?...never mind.) Granted, "The Girl..." hardcover can be purchased at Barnes & Noble for $4.95 'cause it is one of the worst things Steve ever wrote. (Give him credit, though: He had just got knocked the fuck out by that lunatic that ran him down.) Either the girl lost in the woods lives or she dies...not the most layered of plots, but hey, if George was writing the screenplay with Steve helping, it would be great. Well, it's all moot now, cause George says he's probably won't be able to do it--the lack of star-power thing.
Today (at http://www.robertrmccammon.com/faq.html) Frank Darabont said the following about The Mist:
Now that the last five years of intense directing crapola is behind me, I'm absolutely blissed about shifting gears back into writing mode for a year or two. Topping my list of priorities are at long last finishing MINE (I've had the first HALF of the script written for five years now, but got waylaid by GREEN MILE and MAJESTIC!), finally adapting Steve King's THE MIST, and also adapting Mr. Bradbury's FAHRENHEIT 451. These are all possible directing/producing projects for me. Rick and his fans should know that my enthusiasm for MINE has never dampened, and I'm itching to get back to it.
Frank Darabond is turning The Mist into a movie. No info or releases dates have been released on it yet, but Daily Variety reports that Michael J. Fox is being approached for a lead role. Fox is a HUUUUUUGE Stephen King fan and has wanted to find the right project to be in for years. Fox was actually up for the William Sadler role in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, but had to bow out for other film commitments.
The Rock Bottom Remainders will appear at the Book Expo of America in NYC on May 4th. King will be appearing with the band onstage. For more info, check out Ridley Pearson's web site (www.RidleyPearson.com) or the Book Expo web site (www.BookExpoAmerica.com).
King's agent commented on King's upcoming retirement:
"He's spoken about retiring many times in the past," Greene told The Associated Press Thursday. "In my own mind, I think it's unlikely he'll stop working."
The article also said:
A spokeswoman for King said the author had not yet read Sunday's article and would have no immediate comment.
In an interview with Kim Murphy King talks about the next projects he has coming out: a book of short stories [Everything's Eventual], due in March. Then in the fall, the long-delayed novel From a Buick Eight, postponed because it involves a car accident and didn't seem appropriate before. The last three novels in the Dark Tower series, to be completed in the coming year. A limited series about a haunted hospital [The Kingdom] for ABC.
He also says that after that he's done writing books
Or, at least, publishing books. "You get to a point where you get to the edges of a room, and you can go back and go where you've been, and basically recycle stuff," he says. "I've seen it in my own work. People when they read 'Buick Eight' are going to think Christine. It's about a car that's not normal, OK? You say, 'I've said the things that I have to say, that are new and fresh and interesting to people.' Then you have a choice. You can either continue to go on, or say I left when I was still on top of my game. I left when I was still holding the ball, instead of it holding me.
Elite Entertainment will be reissuing Night Of The Living Dead: Millennium Edition on DVD which will include new liner notes by Romero and Stephen King.
The Rock Bottom Remainders will celebrate their 10th year as a group at the Book Expo of America in New York on May 4th. For ticket information contact tjordan@reedexpo.com.
On November 5, 2001, Frank Muller was in a very serious motorcycle accident near Los Angeles, California. He sustained multiple fractures, lacerations and abrasions, and went into cardiac arrest three times. He also suffered severe head trauma, which was subsequently diagnosed as Diffuse Axonal Injury.
The audio books community has responded to Frank with an outpouring of support for him and his family. As part of this support, Stephen King, John Grisham, Pat Conroy and Peter Straub will hold a benefit performance at 8:00 pm on Saturday, February 2, 2002, which will include live readings and reflections.
The Destroyer series is a well-written series that has been published for over 27 years. It contains insightful political satire and often lampoons well-known people. In the latest volume #125 The Wrong Stuff, Stephen King is featured as a major character and appears throughout the novel. The author is clearly very familiar with King, and his portrait of him is accurately drawn with details of King's life that betray the hand of a fan of his fiction.
Tor has been republishing Richard Matheson for a number of years, bringing back into print such classics as Hell House, I Am Legend and The Incredible Shrinking Man. This month the company has collected 20 of his best short horror stories under the title Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.
The book boasts a glowing introduction by Stephen King, who states, "When people talk about the genre, I guess they mention my name first, but without Richard Matheson, I wouldn't be around. He is as much my father as Bessie Smith was Elvis Presley's mother."
Christina Ricci will star in and direct Speed Queen based on Stewart O'Nan's novel of the same name about a convicted murderer who tries to give her life story to a famous horror writer (Stephen King). O'Nan originally wanted to call his book Dear Stephen King but that didn't go over too well with all concerned.
According to the site 4filmmakers.com Bruce Willis (it doesn't mentions if it's the same Bruce Willis that stars in the Die Hard movies though) and Arnold Rifkin will be the producers for Bag of Bones. The Production Companies will be Cheyenne Enterprises. No word on where they are in the production though.
According to Reuters King has sold the movie rights for "Bag Of Bones" to Deborah Raffin and her husband Michael Viner. Raffin is an actress (Death Wish 3, Scanner 2 and Sidney Sheldons The Sand Of Time) and Viner a movie producer. Let's hope that they do a great job with it!