New Stephen King Movies in the Works From Ben Stiller, Darren Aronofsky

Sooner or later, someone might want to consider launching a Stephen King streaming service. Because there are already a plethora of King adaptations out there, and it seems that every day, something new gets announced. Just last week, a new adaptation based on a short story from King’s recent collection If It Bleeds was announced. Now, two other adaptations pulled from that book are in the works: Rat, which is being developed by Ben Stiller, and The Life of Chuck, which hails from Darren Aronofsky. And there’s a third adaption that’s a possibility as well.

Last week, I covered the news that Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, a short story from Stephen King’s recent collection If It Bleeds, was being turned into a film by Netflix, Ryan Murphy, and Blumhouse. But it looks like that’s not the only story from the book that’s headed to the screen. According to Deadline, the three other stories in the book are also on the verge of adaptation.

First up: Rat, which has been optioned to Ben Stiller to produce, direct and star in the feature. The second-best story in the book (Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is number 1, in my humble opinion), Rat follows a struggling writer who thinks he’s suddenly come up with a great idea for a novel. In order to avoid distractions and get the book written, he departs from his family and heads to a remote cabin. But once there, he comes down with a serious illness and begins hallucinating a talking rat. Or is it a hallucination? The rat makes the writer an offer to help finish his book, and, since this is a Stephen King story, the offer has sinister consequences. It’s a weird, funny story and it has a lot of potential to be turned into a fun movie. Having Stiller be the person to bring it to screen is certainly an interesting choice.

Next, we have The Life of Chuck, which is being worked on by Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa. For now, Aronofsky is only serving as a producer. This is one of the more experimental stories in the book, and I can’t really tell you much about it without giving away a whopper of a twist. Just know this: the story kicks-off with what seems like an apocalyptic event, with the narrative then backtracking from there.

Finally, there’s the title story, If It Bleeds. Details on this adaptation are murky, but the insinuation is that HBO might be considering adapting the tale. Which makes sense, because If It Bleeds is a direct sequel to King’s The Outsider, which was turned into a series by HBO. The main character of this tale is Holly Gibney, the OCD-suffering private eye who may or may not be psychic. Cynthia Erivo played the character on The Outsider.

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