Jake Gyllenhaal Offered Lead Role In Major Stephen King Remake
Jake Gyllenhaal has been offered the lead role in an upcoming Stephen King adaptation which could be one of the actor's scariest films
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It might not seem like it when you first lay on eyes on Jake Gyllenhaal that he has pretty insane range as an actor. The innocent face and easy smile give him a sense of comfort and ease, but this guy can get real creepy, real quick if the script is right. It’s a testament to his talent and why he’s one of the most sought-after actors around. Now, it looks like he’s in demand for another film, one that could get pretty scary with The Illuminerdi reporting that Gyllenhaal has been offered the lead in Salem’s Lot, the adaptation of the Stephen King novel.
This reporting has it that Jake Gyllenhaal has been offered the lead of Ben Mears in the Salem’s Lot adaptation and remake. If he took the role, he’d be entering a town with a whole host of bloodsucking problems. In the novel, Mears is an author who returns home to write a book about his childhood. Things start off fine enough until there’s a slow realization that the residents are no longer what they seem. That’s because they’re being turned into vampires.
The Illuminerdi didn’t stop at Jake Gyllenhaal with these casting rumors either. Apparently, the filmmakers are targeting Christoph Waltz in the role of Richard Straker. In the book, Straker is an art dealer who has just moved to the town of Jerusalem’s Lot (the other name for the town) but is hiding a much darker secret. In fact, he’s the head vampire, responsible for beginning to turn the local residents into demons of the night. This would be a major coup to pull off casting both of these superstars.
It remains to be seen if Jake Gyllenhaal ends up taking the role of Ben Mears in Salem’s Lot. If he did, he’d be joining director Gary Dauberman who also penned the script. This will be Dauberman’s second feature-length film after Annabelle Comes Home. But he also has experience working with Stephen King source material after penning It and It Chapter Two, both intensely scary films in their own right. He’s also written The Curse of La Llorona, The Nun, and the previous two Annabelle films. This latest is gearing up to be absolutely horrifying.
And it’s not the first time Salem’s Lot has been adapted for the screen. If Jake Gyllenhaal took the role, he’d be following Rob Lowe who played Ben Mears in the 2004 TNT adaptation, and David Soul who played the part back in 1979 for a two-part miniseries.
As for Jake Gyllenhaal, we know he can definitely lean into these types of roles, even if he’s on the other side of the good/ bad spectrum in the script. Recently he’s been in Velvet Buzzsaw, Life, and Nocturnal Animals, all of which dialed up the intensity and had their share of hair-raising moments. And who could forget Nightcrawler in which Lou Bloom slowly descends into madness in an effort to catch deadly moments on camera?
Time will tell if Jake Gyllenhaal takes this Salem’s Lot role. In the meantime, he’s set to star in the upcoming Michael Bay action film Ambulance with Yahya Abdul-Mateen, Eiza Gonzalez, and Moses Ingram among others. Plus there’s the kidnapping mystery The Guilty with Riley Keough and Ethan Hawke due out this year.
