A Classic ‘80s Stephen King Movie Getting Remade By Hannibal Creator
A classic Stephen King novel is being made into a brand new movie. Here's what we know so far about the Bryan Fuller project.
This article is more than 2 years old
Bryan Fuller is the screenwriter who brought us Hannibal, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, and developed American Gods and Star Trek: Discovery. Now, he has a new project he’s both adapting from Stephen King’s novel and remaking from John Carpenter’s 1983 film. Deadline is reporting that Bryan Fuller is working on a script to remake the 1983 movie Christine, which is an adaptation of a novel by King. Not only is Bryan Fuller writing the script, but he’s set to direct the movie. This will be his directorial debut.
Fortunately, Bryan Fuller’s experience so far has shown us that he understands how to adapt a novel into a film. He did this when developing American Gods for television, which was originally a novel by Neil Gaiman. His work on Hannibal meant using source material from the movies and the novels by Thomas Harris. Some writers are intimidated and overwhelmed by having a lot of source material, but Bryan Fuller has experience that will lend well to this new Stephen King adaptation for Christine.
Christine is a supernatural horror story. In it, a teenage boy gets a used car. The car is named Christine. As time goes on, the car seems to change the teenager and the people around him. We learn more about the car’s suspicious behavior and its history as the story unfolds. The trailer for the 1983 movie boasts “fear on four wheels”. The original Stephen King adaptation is a cult classic.
It will be interesting to see what Bryan Fuller decides to keep from the original John Carpenter film. In both the Stephen King novel and the movie, Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury. Will Bryan Fuller keep the same car? Will that read the same way to audiences today? Deadline reports that he intends to keep the story set in the 1980s as it is in the book and the movie, which would make a 1958 car more realistic. Making the Plymouth Fury menacing to today’s audiences may be a bit more difficult. We’ve seen a lot more killer cars with a lot more technology in them now.
Novelist Stephen King is well known for repeating themes in his stories. He’s also well-known for writing about the things that he’s afraid of. One of those themes seems to be the dangers of cars. In 1999, King was walking on the side of the road in Maine when a Dodge Caravan hit him, nearly killing him. However, Christine, and many of his other titles with killer vehicles, pre-date that accident. Fans of King’s work have noticed much stranger recurring themes in his work. For example, the author once worked in a laundry mat, a job he hated. He’s expressed a fear of having to work in a laundry mat again. His readers have now noticed that many tense and frightening scenes in his work involve laundry. In comparison, killer cars don’t seem as far-fetched as the fear of laundry.
Stephen King has been a particularly prolific author and many of his titles have been adapted. His most recent work to appear on screen is Lisey’s Story, which Stephen King actually adapted the scripts for himself. That miniseries is currently available on Apple TV+ for streaming.
