Paul Greengrass is the captain now, well, the captain of a new Stephen King adaptation of his novel Fairy Tale. The Captain Phillips director will handle the property after Universal Pictures won a contentious bidding war for it.
Greengrass will produce the film as well with help from another producer: Gregory Goodman (I Heart Huckabees, News of the World), according to Deadline. Once they found out Greengrass was attached to direct, studios and streamers alike tried to buy it.
Greengrass has a pretty good relationship with Universal, and that was something that pushed the deal to fruition. The source material involves a 17-year-old boy who comes into possession of a key to a new and terrifying world.
The stakes are high in the fantasy world as good and evil are locked in an epic battle that has repercussions in the real world. King said he was excited about the prospect of his novel making it to the silver screen, especially with Greengrass on board.
“Needless to say, I’m a Paul Greengrass fan and think he’s a wonderful choice for this film,” the famous author said. The admiration goes both ways, as Greengrass called the book “a work of genius — a classic adventure story and also a disturbing contemporary allegory.”
This is the latest adaptation of a King novel in a string of them that goes back to the 1980s. The latest story to be adapted for film was Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, which premiered on Netflix on Oct. 5 and was directed by John Lee Hancock. Unfortunately, the reviews are just OK.
We’ll let you know as soon as we hear more about Fairy Tale.
