Stephen King is one of the most prolific novelists of the modern era and is no stranger to seeing his works adapted to the small and silver screen.
One of his most recent novels, Billy Summers, is the latest that will be turned into a movie.
King is mostly known for his horror stories with elements of the supernatural, but Billy Summers is a straight crime thriller. It tells the story of a hitman who must navigate one last job while residing in a small town in America. It received positive reviews from critics.
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The movie will be developed by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company, though there are no suggestions yet that the Star Wars and Star Trek director will be at the helm of Billy Summers.
Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. who previously wrote The Last Samurai together, are penning the screenplay for this one. It was originally planned for the novel to be adapted into a 10-part series before a theatrical movie release was confirmed.
Interestingly, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company will also help put Billy Summers together, but that doesn't guarantee he will make an appearance.
Does King want to see a prequel to IT?
The huge box office success of horror movies IT Chapter One and IT Chapter Two has naturally led to ideas about how the series can continue.
The remake of IT grossed a whopping $701 million and received critical acclaim, and although IT Chapter Two received mixed reviews, the gross from the sequel took the overall box office from the two movies to well over $1 billion.
Talks of a sequel or prequel began almost immediately after the release of the second movie, and it appears we will see the latter, as it has been confirmed that a series will be produced for HBO Max entitled Welcome to Derry which will focus on the origins of Pennywise.
King, who has never been shy about criticising adaptations of his novels, was warm to Chapter One and Chapter Two, and it seems like he is open to seeing more of an earlier incarnation of Pennywise in a prequel.
“I think that when I die I will kind of disappear from the paperback racks. But that f***ing clown is going to live forever," he told Bloody Disgusting.
"Well, I don’t have a relationship to Pennywise now. Because I have no intention of going back to IT, it’s in the hands of people who are doing this. Andy and Barbara are going to do Welcome to Derry.
"And they’ve got sort of a handshake deal, I think, with HBO Max. It’s an interesting possibility to do that. They talked about a prequel. Which struck me as an okay idea.
"I’d love to see what Pennywise was up to 27 years before the ’50s. Or, I guess it would be the ’80s because they updated the . So it would be, you know, before World War 2 or something. It’ll be interesting to see what will happen with that.”
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