Stephen King: News from the Dead Zone #197

There’s been so much news lately, I hardly know where to begin. What merits top billing? Let’s start with that trailer for It. First we had a teaser for the trailer, that stirred up interest. And then we got the 2-½ minute trailer itself, and boy what a beauty that was. In its first 24 hours, it racked up an astonishing 197 million views around the world, smashing all previous records. That speaks a lot to anticipation for this movie.

All that and a stunning poster, too, that rewards close scrutiny. We still have five months to wait for the movie itself, but King has already seen it and had his administrative assistant post this on his message board/website:

Steve asked me to pass along that he saw a screening of IT today and wanted to let everybody know that they should stop worrying about it as the producers have done a wonderful job with the production.

As an addendum, here’s The Interesting Reason Why the Blood is Black in the Trailer, in case you wonder about such things. Also, check this out: someone recut footage from the miniseries to show it side by side with the new trailer.

The other big feature with high expectations is, of course, The Dark Tower. We learned last week that Sony has decided to push the release date back a week, to August 4. This comes just a week after the release of a gorgeous poster (which bore the July 28 release date). Buzz about the movie after Sony screened footage (but not a trailer) at CinemaCon recently was very positive. The stated reason for the change was to give The Emoji Movie “more summertime play” before school returns to session and less to do with The Dark Tower, which won’t be as reliant on young viewers.

“The war is over, Gunslinger,” the Man in Black says. Here is a detailed report on the footage from The Dark Tower shown at CinemaCon. And, just for kicks, here’s another one. There were reports of some pickup filming in Los Angeles about a month ago.

Then we got word last week that the movie version of Throttle is moving forward. Producer Emile Gladstone and his A Bigger Boat Productions have optioned the story and set John Scott III, the writer of the 2015 Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie movie Maggie, to pen the screenplay.

At first I thought this was a Dollar Baby, but I guess it isn’t. Tobin Bell, Noah Jupe will star in an adaptation of “My Pretty Pony,” which will film in Michigan this spring. Luke Jaden wrote the script and will be directing. Josh Boone is an executive producer on the project.

In the print world, we got a cover for and an excerpt from Sleeping Beauties, the novel co-written by Stephen & Owen King. The book will be published on September 26, and Cemetery Dance has announced that they will be publishing a special edition in three different deluxe editions. Details to come later this year. King talked about the book and the process at his recent signing in Sarasota. They initially considered making a limited television series out of the premise, but believing that would bring too many other people into the process.

They spent two years writing it as a novel together. “The way that it worked was we went back and forth, like tennis, like the book is the ball,” King said. “I’d have it for three or four weeks and he’d have it for maybe three or four weeks or maybe a little bit longer. He’s a slower composer than I am, but he’s very, very good—very sharp, very funny.”

And just last evening we learned that Anonymous Content will be partnering with the Kings to develop Sleeping Beauties as a TV series.

Richard Chizmar released the first chapter of “Gwendy’s Button Box” and announced that there will be an audio version at the end of May, read by Maggie Siff (Sons of Anarchy). That version will contain the bonus King story “The Music Room,” along with an interview with the two authors.

Also on audio: James Franco is reading the first-ever audio release of The Dead Zone, to be published on April 25.

This is pretty cool, from Zen Pencils: a comic inspired by a passage from On Writing: The Desk.

For a limited time only (until April 17): Download Robin Furth’s Bill Hodges Concordance for free and enter the sweepstakes.

There’s been a lot of activity on books or movies about the production of movies. The latest is Nope, Nothing Wrong Here: The Making of Cujo by Lee Gambin (Massacred By Mother Nature: Exploring the Natural Horror Film, The Howling: Studies in the Horror Film), reviewed here and the author is interviewed here.

In the same vein, Dead Mouse Productions is planning a documentary: Pennywise: The Story of IT, directed by John Campopiano, (Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary). Tim Curry’s involvement in the documentary was recently confirmed.

For the collectors: Suntup Editions will release a signed limited edition art portfolio of The Eyes of the Dragon featuring twenty-four illustrations by artist David Palladini.

All this and a bag of chips, too.