Some exciting news for horror fans has just emerged from the shadows - one of Stephen King's short stories is being turned into a movie by the team that made one of the scariest films of this year.
Yes, in a move that's practically guaranteed to have us shitting ourselves - figuratively or literally, or both - the makers of A Quiet Place have announced that they'll turning King's 1973 short story The Boogeyman into a film.
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the pair of writers behind A Quiet Place - which King called an 'extraordinary piece of work' - will be writing the movie adaptation of the horror tale, which is from King's Night Shift collection, which was published in 1978, five years after King wrote this particular tale.
It's a particularly popular story among filmmakers - according to Uproxx, it has been adapted into shorts seven times as a result of what King calls 'baby dollar deals'.
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Invented by and specific to the world-famous horror author, they are non-commercial and non-exclusive rights options that grant fledgling filmmakers the right to adapt one of his short stories for the cost of $1. Literally $1. Which is absolutely awesome.
In his introduction to the shooting script for The Shawshank Redemption, King explains why he does this - basically because he's a really good guy.
"'77 was the year young film makers - college students, for the most part - started writing me about the stories I'd published (first in Night Shift, later in Skeleton Crew), wanting to make short films out of them.
"Over the objections of my accountant, who saw all sorts of possible legal problems, I established a policy which still holds today. I will grant any student filmmaker the right to make a movie out of any short story I have written (not the novels, that would be ridiculous), so long as the film rights are still mine to assign.
"I ask them to sign a paper promising that no resulting film will be exhibited commercially without approval, and that they send me a videotape of the finished work. For this one-time right I ask a dollar."
This incarnation of The Boogeyman - which tells the story of a man who has recently lost all his children to a creature lurking in the closet - will be the first time that the tale has been made into a full-length feature. Let's hope it lives up to our incredibly high expectations.
Featured Image Credit: Paramount PicturesTopics: TV and Film, US Entertainment, Stephen King