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Jonathan Demme Set to Adapt Stephen King's New Novel '11/22/63'
by Ethan Anderton
August 11, 2011
Source: Variety
The author has seen plenty of his novels turned into feature films and TV miniseries (we just heard about a new adaptation of The Stand from Harry Potter franchise duo David Yates and Steve Kloves), and now one of his yet-to-be-published novels has already picked up a movie deal. Variety reports Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme has optioned the film rights to 11/22/63, a new novel from King which will hit shelves on November 8th. This will be Demme's first film since the Rachel Getting Married in 2008, and with a time travel-centric plot, this will be the director's first foray into the science fiction genre. Read on!
Here's the synopsis for the book that really sounds quite fantastic:
Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
The film is said to really capture the spirit of the 60's along with some spectacular suspense, and if Demme can adapt the book as fantastically as the Academy Award winning adaptation of Silence of the Lambs, then this could turn into something quite spectacular. Demme will not only direct the film, but also write and produce the adaptation through his own Clinica Estetico production banner. The film currently doesn't have any financing or distributor, but with someone like Demme taking on a novel from master of suspense Stephen King, I doubt it will have trouble finding a home for the filmmaker to start shooting in the fall of 2012 as planned.
5 Comments
1
King+Demme+JFK Assassintion+Time Travel = Can't lose.
Hattori Hanzo on Aug 12, 2011
2
sorry, hattori and ethan - this doesn't sound interesting to me......yet. the "time-travel to fix something" plotline has never been one i'm especially fond of. also - kind of convenient that his friend just happens to have a time-portal in his storeroom! i'll wait for the trailer but i have to say this doesn't sound like a good idea to me.
Anonymous on Aug 12, 2011
3
Holy Shit, EPIC. This needs a distributor now!
Adam L on Aug 12, 2011
4
Ah, there is a Twilight Zone (the 80's series) with a similar plot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profile_in_Silver Nothing new under the sun people...
Leinergroove on Aug 12, 2011
5
I still love JFK and his vision for our nation and future, even while being aware of his serious flaws and the sales job that Camelot was to the American people-still preferable to all the presidential sales jobs since. But, I think it would be interesting if, instead of surviving and persevering as a hero, JFK's career took a Nixonian turn, and he became embroiled in some negative scenario (nuclear, sexual scandal, Vietnam) which changed the course of history in other, darker ways. This was an element in the above-referenced very good 80's Twilight Zone episode. It would just make a more interesting story than "He lives and saves the country/world." Another plot idea could involve JFK hunting down the conspiracy that targeted him with surprising revelations (I do not use "reveal" as a noun. It is a verb.) about who was involved...and maybe not the mob, CIA, LBJ, cubans, freemasons, southern power players, etc.
Greenblade on Aug 12, 2011
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