Stephen King wrote a great number of classic, beloved horror novels in the 20th century, but one of his scariest stories was first published less than a decade ago. Hitting store shelves in 2014, Revival is a haunting tome that sticks with you well after you read the traumatizing final chapters – and it's extreme quality is part of the reason why I was so bummed in 2020 when a film based on the book from writer/director Mike Flanagan fell apart.
Now, a little over two years later, it looks as though Revival may have found new life in Hollywood, though instead of becoming a movie, a new adaptation is being apparently being developed for the small screen.
This interesting update comes from Mike Flanagan, who published a post about his time trying to make Revival into a movie on his personal Tumblr page this week. He explains that the underwhelming box office performance by his most recent Stephen King adaptation, Doctor Sleep, resulted in Warner Bros. losing confidence in the project, and he made the decision to let it go when the opportunity arose for him to get the rights to The Dark Tower. In a paragraph about the latter, Flanagan writes,
Steve doesn't like to give the same person multiple rights as a general rule, because he doesn't want his projects to stall out in development, which makes good sense. Given the choice, we absolutely wanted to focus on The Dark Tower. We let Revival go, and last I heard, some other people were developing it as a TV project.
Mike Flanagan doesn't name any names involved with this TV version of Revival, but simply knowing about its development is intriguing. While the book has a pretty standard length as a Stephen King novel, the scope of the story is massive, following the life of protagonist Jamie Morton from his childhood in a small Maine town to adulthood as a recovering heroin addict and former musician working at recording studio. Adapting it in several chapters could be a perfect way to properly get the material from the page to the screen.
Revival focuses on the relationship between the aforementioned Jamie Morton and a man named Charles Jacobs, who Jamie first meets when Charles becomes the minister at his hometown Methodist church. Following a horrific accident that kills his wife and young son, Charles denounces god and is basically kicked out of town, and Jamie loses touch with him – but the two men end up reconnecting multiple times later in life, with the protagonist slowly learning more and more about strange experiments that Charles conducts with electricity.
Given Mike Flanagan's history with the works of Stephen King, which includes his phenomenal adaptation of Gerald's Game in addition to Doctor Sleep, one can imagine that the filmmaker would have done magical things with Revival. And it's worth noting that his post suggests that he hasn't wholly given up on his vision for the story – suggesting that it could find new life in a different medium. That being said, he also notes that he would be "first in line" to see the TV adaptation that is now in the works without his involvement. He writes:
You win some and you lose some in this business. Who knows, maybe it'll come back some day... maybe we get another chance, or may we revisit it down the line as a limited series. Stranger things have happened. Ka is a wheel. Or, maybe this new television production of Revival will get off the ground, and if it does I wish them nothing but the best with it. It's a phenomenal story, and I'll be first in line to see it.
Revival is one of the relatively few Stephen King novels that has not yet been adapted, but we can keep our fingers crossed that some version of it will eventually get into production (if you purchase a copy of the book and read it yourself, you'll understand). You can keep track of all the King-related projects that are now in the works with our Updated Stephen King Movies and TV guide – including director Rob Savage's The Boogeyman, which will be arriving in theaters this Friday, June 2.
