Film adaptation of Stephen King story Rat coming from the producer of The Witch
Five years ago, it was announced that Ben Stiller had picked up the rights to the Stephen King story Rat, which is featured in King’s short story collection If It Bleeds (you can buy it HERE). Stiller was planning to produce, direct, and star in the film adaptation… but he didn’t get the project into production, and now Deadline reports that Rat is being brought to the screen by a different creative team, including The Witch and The Lighthouse producer Jay Van Hoy.
Isaac Ezban, whose credits include Mal de Ojo and Párvulos, will be directing the film from a screenplay by Jeff Howard, who has worked with King super-fan Mike Flanagan on the likes of The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, Oculus, Before I Wake, Ouija: Origin of Evil, and the King adaptation Gerald’s Game. Jay Van Hoy is producing alongside Fernando Ferro and Paul Perez (who worked on the King/Flanagan movie Doctor Sleep while he was an executive at Warner Bros.)
Rat focuses on, as so many King stories do, a writer. This writer is a man named Drew Larson, who has an acclaimed short story to his credit. He’s given himself over to academia because every time he tries to turn a good idea into a novel, things go seriously bad – mentally, physically, or both. But his latest concept, a Western thriller, is gangbusters, and he goes out to an old family cabin in the woods to get the novel done. When storms, insecurities, and sickness hit, Drew strikes a sinister bargain with a rat that turns out to be a thought-provoking spin on a “Monkey’s Paw” situation. The rat offers to get rid of his writer’s block in exchange for one of Larson’s loved ones dying…
Ezban provided the following statement: “Stephen King has always been my favorite writer, ever since I started reading horror as a teenager, and since then, Ive had the long-time dream of adapting some of his material… He embodies that essence of the contrast of beauty and brutality that has shaped my vision and sensibilities as a storyteller. I’ve read most of his work, and Rat remains one of my favorite stories he’s ever created… the perfect match — a dark, intimate, bizarre, even humorous and deeply unsettling story that gets under your skin… I see this as a survival movie about writer’s block, and also as the ultimate tale of our craft vs. our people, our creations vs. our loved ones, our art vs. our family, a theme I can very personally relate to. King has always inspired me as a filmmaker and a storyteller, and I feel honored to bring this tale to life.” The producers added, “Stephen King’s work has always been a touchstone for genre filmmakers, and with Isaac and Jeff steering this adaptation, we believe it will capture both the terror and humanity that make his stories timeless.“
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