‘It has to have a reason for being’: The director of the 36th best-reviewed Stephen King adaptation ever offers advice on how to adapt Stephen King

For almost half a century, Hollywood has remained continually obsessed with the idea of adapting Stephen King‘s novels, novellas, and short stories for screens big and small, and that’s without even mentioning the reboots, remakes, reimaginings, and prequels to come after the fact.

Next week’s Pet Sematary: Bloodlines ticks the latter box, but the early reviews make it perfectly clear that it won’t go down in the annals of history as being among the finest. In fact, a current Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of only 26 percent at the time of writing means there are no less than 35 adaptations of the horror maestro’s work to have fared better among critics, and that only extends to the projects listed on the aggregation site, because there’s even more than that.

Not quite the ideal outcome for a project that was already facing an uphill struggle to convince the doubters it needed to exist given its status as the prequel to a story that was already brought to the screen in 1989, rewarded with a sequel, and then handed a remake just four years ago, but director Lindsey Anderson Beer’s advice to Collider on the way to tackle King’s tales hasn’t become any less accurate.

“I adapt a lot of IP because that’s the business we are in these days, and I always approach it the same way, which is that you have to honor the spirit of what the original thing was. And to me, the spirit is the theme or the moral question. So, you know, for Pet Sematary, even though this is a very different kind of film than some of the other Pet Sematarys and isn’t just a small family drama, but examines a whole town, that central question of what would you do for somebody you love is central to the core of the story and where the horror comes from, and where the comedy comes from, and where the drama comes from. What is that essential question or essence to that thing? I would say that don’t… “Don’t” is an interesting question. I would say, don’t just do something to remake it. It has to stand on its own. It has to have a reason for being.”

No matter how it fares with critics, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines boasting the status of the latest title to roll off the King production line in close proximity to Halloween will at least guarantee it a stellar debut on streaming when it hits Paramount Plus on Oct. 6.