It’s Cannes season, and along with advanced screenings of upcoming movies, studios are looking at what films to buy for domestic or international distribution. One of the films on the market during the festival is The Monkey, which found a US distributor in Neon.
Directed by Osgood Perkins and produced by horror giant James Wan, Deadline reported the film was locked in a “multi-buyer tug of war” after a new promo played on the Croisette street. Neon ultimately won with a seven-figure deal, and reunites the studio with Perkins, who the studio appears to be all-in on. Along with this, Neon’s distributing both his upcoming horror flick Longlegs (releasing in July) and his supernatural thriller Keeper. Black Bear previously secured non-US distribution for The Monkey last year, and funnily enough, it was also during Cannes season.
King released The Monkey as a short story for a 1980 magazine, then re-released a more punched up version inside of 1985's short story collection Skeleton Crew. The story centers on twins Hal and Bill, who find their dad’s old toy monkey, which causes a string of gruesome murders around town. Though the boys immediately wipe their hands of the situation and put it back in the attic, they reunite as adults when the murders start up again and take it upon themselves to kill the toy for good.
For the film adaptation, X-Men ‘97's Theo James will pull double duty as Hal and Bill as adults, while Sweet Tooth’s Christian Convery will play the young version of the twins. Eljiah Wood, Tatiana Maslany, Colin Wood, Sarah Levy, and Rohan Campbell also star.
Typically, there’s two movies a year (at minimum) based on King’s work that come out in theaters or streaming. For 2024, the only movie on the docket (that we currently know of) is Salem’s Lot, which comes to Max later this year. With The Monkey now in the mix, fans of the author’s work may get a double dip of adapations to scare them during the horror season.
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