King's 'IT' to get 2 films & 'The Ten O’clock People' short story as well

Warner Bros., which has a few of Stephen King's works stuck in developmental hell for years, has hired Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre, Jane Eyre) to direct a new, two-part version of IT for the big screen. Which is good sign the studio understands that, as with any book well over a 1000 pages, it’s hard to translate that to screen without losing so much of its narrative. While ABC’s version of the novel 20 years ago was able to balance it pretty well (but let’s be honest, it was Tim Curry’s scene stealing performance as Pennywise the Clown that made that version shine), the scripts true horror aspects were toned down for TV. And I can venture the success of other two-part films -Harry Potter, Twilight and the upcoming The Hobbit- is making the studio bold enough to do it as two films. Fukunaga, by the way, will also co-write the script with Chase Palmer. No timeline for production or release date has been announced.  

Tom Holland will adapt and direct The Ten O’clock People, a big screen adaptation of a short story by Stephen King that was part of his 1993 Nightmares and Dreamscapes collection. Both Holland and King previously collaborated on ABC’s 2-part version of The Langoliers and the theatrical version of Thinner. This will be Holland’s first theatrical film since 2007. The Ten O’clock People tells the story of Brandon Pearson, who in trying to kick his smoking habit, who uncovers a frightening aspect of reality that he plans to extinguish through extreme measures. “This was Stephen trying to deal with his cigarette jones and the fairly new no-smoking laws back in the ’90s,” Holland said. “This film will be a modernization of the original short story, a paranoid suspense piece.” The Night Flier and Dolan's Cadillac have already beedeln adapted from this collection.