The long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot from director Gary Dauberman (Annabelle Comes Home) is still without a release date here in 2024, and Stephen King has once more taken to Twitter this week to ask the big question: WHAT’S THE DEAL?!
Originally set for theatrical release on September 9, 2022, the new Stephen King adaptation was recently bumped to April 21, 2023, before getting ejected from the theatrical slate altogether. As of now, Salem’s Lot still doesn’t have a release date.
King tweets tonight, “Between you and me, Twitter, I’ve seen the new SALEM’S LOT and it’s quite good. Old-school horror filmmaking: slow build, big payoff. Not sure why WB is holding it back; not like it’s embarrassing, or anything. Who knows. I just write the fucking things.”
The concern from horror fans is that Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot will be trashed completely by Warner Bros., a nasty money-saving tactic the studio has unfortunately been embracing in the past several months. That being said, we have no reason to think that’s the case at this time. Last we heard, it’s more likely the film will eventually debut on the Max streaming service.
Stay tuned for more on the upcoming Salem’s Lot remake.
Between you and me, Twitter, I’ve seen the new SALEM’S LOT and it’s quite good. Old-school horror filmmaking: slow build, big payoff. Not sure why WB is holding it back; not like it’s embarrassing, or anything. Who knows. I just write the fucking things.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 19, 2024
Salem’s Lot 2023 is set “circa 1975 (when King’s book was first published).”
In Salem’s Lot 2023, “Haunted by an incident from his childhood, author Ben Mears returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book, only to discover the town is being preyed upon by a bloodthirsty vampire and his loyal servant.”
The cast includes Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, Bill Camp, John Benjamin Hickey, Nicholas Crovetti, Jordan Preston Carter, William Sadler, Spencer Treat Clark, Cade Woodward, Debra Christofferson, and Pilou Asbaek.
Dauberman’s creative team includes director of photography Michael Burgess (Annabelle Comes Home, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It), production designer Marc Fisichella (Ma, The Maze Runner), editor Luke Ciarrocchi (Glass, Split), composers Nathan Barr (The House with a Clock in Its Walls, The Great) and Lisbeth Scott (American Son, Tumble Leaf), costume designer Virginia Johnson (The New Mutants, Mile 22), and first assistant director Jeffrey “JP” Wetzel (Malignant, Annabelle Comes Home).
Fresh off Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper directed the very first adaptation of Salem’s Lot back in 1979, and a new mini-series followed in its wake more recently, in 2004.