James Wan To Produce Remake of The Tommyknockers

According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Wan (The Conjuring) and Roy Lee (IT) are set to produce a theatrical film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1987 novel The Tommyknockers. The two will produce through Wan’s Atomic Monster and Lee’s Vertigo Entertainment. Larry Sanitsky, who executive produced the original 1993 miniseries, will also produce. The project was shopped to studios and digital streamers yesterday.

Sanitsky said: “It is an allegorical tale of addiction (Stephen was struggling with his own at the time), the threat of nuclear power, the danger of mass hysteria and the absurdity of technical evolution run amuck. All are as relevant today as the day the novel was written. It is also a tale about the eternal power of love and the grace of redemption”

The book is the second-highest selling King book of all time, although King himself has called it an “awful book.” Nonetheless, it has outsold classics like IT, The Shining and Carrie. It was previously adapted as an NBC miniseries in 1993, starring Jimmy Smits and Marg Helgenberger, to huge ratings. NBC previously spoke about adapting it again in 2013 but that never happened.

Here’s a synopsis: The story focuses on a town in Maine that falls under the influence of a dangerous gas from an unearthed space craft. The gas begins to transform the people, giving them enhanced abilities, but also making them violent and subject to an alien hive mentality. One man, thanks to a steel plate in his head, is immune to the effects and tries to stop the townspeople.