DOCTOR SLEEP Director Mike Flanagan Talks About His Next Stephen King Thriller REVIVAL
Director Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game) is currently in the process of developing his next Stephen King film project, which is an adaptation of Revival. While a guest on The Kingcast, the filmmaker offered an update on the project confirming that he’s completed his first draft of the script. He goes on to describes the film as being dark and cynical and bleak and mean. Here’s what Flanagan said:
“What I love about it is it’s a return to cosmic horror, which I think is so fun. It is relentlessly dark and cynical and I’m enjoying the hell out of that. This is just bleak and mean and I like it for that. I haven’t gotten to end a movie that way since ‘Absentia,’ maybe? Maybe ‘Ouija’?”
“This one was a really fun piece of material for me because I get to be like, ‘Oh, you want a dark ending? Okay. Cool. Get ready.’“
On top of that, Flanagan said that King has read the script and has given his approval.
Revival is described as a dark story of addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life. It centers on Reverend Charles Jacobs, “a minister in Harlow, Maine, who shares a secret obsession with boy Jamie Morton, a draw so powerful, it has profound consequences five decades after the shattering tragedy that turned the preacher against God, and long after his final, scathing sermon. Jamie grows to become a nomadic rock guitarist hooked on heroin, and meets Charles Jacobs again, and their bond becomes a pact beyond the Devil’s devising.”
The minister is “obsessed with trying to find a way to communicate with his departed wife and child but accidentally taps into a Lovecraftian horror.” Here’s a more detailed plot summary from the book:
In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.
Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.
I love what Flanagan has done with King’s work in the past and I’m confident that he’ll deliver another great King movie!