Well, we have some good news and some confusing news. The good news is that horror icon Stephen King is praising the upcoming Gary Dauberman-directed adaptation of his 1975 novel “Salem’s Lot.”
The confusing news is that King doesn’t understand why Warner Bros. Pictures seems to be preventing the film’s release.
Last year, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures removed “Salem’s Lot” from its release schedule. The company gave fans no explanation for its removal and apparently, King didn’t get one either. On February 19th, the author made a post to X (formally Twitter) saying he had seen the film, and that it was “quite good.” He then proceeded to question why WB is seemingly holding back its release.
“Salem’s Lot” centers around a small town plagued with vampires. The novel has been adapted once before in 1979 as a miniseries. Dauberman’s adaptation was slated to be released in 2022, but got pushed to 2023. Only to then be removed from the release schedule entirely. Fueling rumors that the movie may never see the light of day.
The closest anyone has come to an explanation is in October with reports saying WB was considering moving “Salem’s Lot” to MAX. The issue here is this flies directly in the face of CEO David Zaslav announcing that the company was shifting away from direct-to-streaming releases and focusing on theatrical releases.
This coupled with WB scrapping high-profile completed/mostly completed films like “Batgirl” and “Coyote vs. Acme” for tax write-offs, is deepening the panic around “Salem’s Lot.” Fans are now concerned that the film, despite its early praise, will be trashed due to budget cuts.
We’ll keep you posted on updates about “Salem’s Lot” as they become available. Because if King isn’t letting it fall to the wayside, fans won’t either. You can check out the trailer for the 70s miniseries below:
