Stephen King fans heads up, we finally have an update about the upcoming movie adaptation of his short story The Monkey. The feature first announced last year is being helmed by Longlegs director Osgood Perkins and is produced by horror master James Wan, hyping up fans for another thrilling horror adaptation. While most details about the project are being kept tightly under wraps, recently director Perkins teased that the feature will be “very funny and very nostalgic.”
The Monkey follows twin brothers Hal and Bill, who discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, and a series of gruesome deaths start occurring all around them. They decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives. Years later, when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good.
‘The Monkey’ Is a Different Kind of Movie From ‘Longlegs’
Speaking to Bloody Disgusting, the Longlegs director revealed that the tone of the feature is more like “Misery or Creepshow or Gremlins or American Werewolf.” Adding, “It couldn’t be LESS like Longlegs.” He further elaborated:
“If you’re gonna make a movie about a toy monkey, you can be serious about it. But so much of King is funny and nostalgic feeling. So we tried to make a movie that felt a little bit more like something from the late ’80s – ’90s. It’s sorta like, if Robert Zemeckis had just like a LITTLE bit of acid and made a Stephen King picture about a monkey toy.”
When compared to his latest release, Longlegs starring Nicolas Cage, Perkins adds “The success we’ve had with Longlegs has been astonishing and The Monkey being a COMPLETELY different movie, a COMPLETELY different movie in every possible way, is really exciting to me to see what’s gonna happen.” The director notes that The Monkey will be a feature “that kids and their parents wanna go see together.” Further teasing, “People blow up, people explode; it’s very extreme but it’s very funny. It’s very father-son redemption, it’s very touching, it’s very nostalgic, it’s very Stephen King.”
The movie has an ensemble cast including Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, and Sarah Levy. Perkins directs from his own screenplay while Wan produces under his Atomic Monster banner. No release date for The Monkey has been revealed.
via Collider