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It was 20 years ago this week that fans first got to see Johnny Depp star in a Stephen King adaptation – playing mentally disturbed writer Mort Rainey in David Koepp’s Secret Window – but there’s no time to get lost in discussion of anniversaries in this week’s edition of The King Beat. There is far too much else to touch on!
In the past seven days, an ancient giant turtle was named after one of Stephen King’s characters, and the author shared a bizarre take on one of 2024’s first horror movies, but before I dig into those stories and my new Recommendation Of The Week, I first want to discuss the biggest recent King-related news: the long awaited release of Salem’s Lot.
I’m Glad Salem’s Lot Is Heading To Max, But That’s Mostly Because Streaming Is Better Than Deletion
Around this time one year ago, I was psyched about the changed distribution plans for Rob Savage’s The Boogeyman. The adaptation of the Stephen King story of the same name went through development and production planned as a Hulu exclusive, but everything changed when test screenings started. The movie freaked people out, and it inspired King to question why it wasn’t being given the chance to work its scary magic in theaters. Discussions were had, a pivot was made, and the feature ended its big screen run more than doubling the project’s reported budget.
This week, Constant Readers had to witness the exact opposite happen with Gary Dauberman’s upcoming film Salem’s Lot. After originally being planned as a theatrical release and sitting on a shelf for years, it’s now been confirmed that it will get distribution in 2024 as a Max exclusive. When the news broke on Tuesday, I was excited, as it was nice to finally hear about a positive update about the film instead of more rumors and speculation… but that excitement in hindsight feels a little wrong. In short, it sucks that we have to settle for the movie being a streaming title and be happy that it’s getting released at all.
In recent months, the idea of Salem’s Lot never getting to see the light of day felt like a real possibility. The film is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which is notably the same company that decided to take a tax break and cancel the releases of both the superhero film Batgirl and the animated Scoob!: Holiday Haunt (and it’s looking like Coyote vs. Acme may be the next title to face that same fate). From a fan perspective, the Stephen King adaptation has been held hostage since it completed production back in late 2021, and we’re happy to see it released needing medical care instead of being outright murdered.
We can hope that Max will give Salem’s Lot a good push when we get closer to its release and that it will get the attention it deserves (with further boosting from Stephen King). The truth, however, is that the movie won’t get the same attention it would have if it were heading to theaters, and it feels like there is a very real danger that it will suffer the same fate as most streaming titles and be obscured by algorithms and ultimately buried in the library.
Salem’s Lot doesn’t currently have a specific release date, but stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the latest updates about the film.
A New Species Of Giant Turtle Has Been Discovered, And It’s Been Named After Stephen King’s Maturin
There are great forces of evil in the works of Stephen King, but balancing them out are great forces of good, and there is perhaps none greater than Maturin The Turtle. The immense cosmic amphibian is said to have emerged from his shell with a stomach ache and vomited out the universe, and he is the true foe of the titular entity in IT and is one of the 12 Guardians of the Beam in The Dark Tower books. He is an important figure in King lore – which is why it was amazing to learn this week that a new species of giant turtle has been discovered and named after him.
A research team led by Dr. Gabriel S. Ferreira of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen has published an article in the journal Biology Letters detailing the unearthing of a never-before seen fossil from the late Pleistocene era, and it has been named Peltocephalus maturin. According to the research, the amphibian is “among the largest freshwater turtles ever found,” with a carapace length of 71 inches (though that doesn’t seem quite large enough for it to hold the Earth upon its shell, as written by Stephen King).
In case you were wondering if this was merely a coincidence, it definitely is not. It’s specifically written in an “Etymology” section in the article that “Maturin refers to the giant turtle that vomited out the universe in Stephen King’s stories.” Phys.org has a quote from Dr. Ferreira, who is very clearly a Constant Reader:
We named the new species after the giant turtle Maturin, an overarching protagonist in the Stephen King multiverse. Maturin is responsible for the creation of the universe in King’s novels and films.
Surely there are a lot of Stephen King fans out there who have named their pets after animals from the author’s books (be it Church from Pet Sematary or Cujo from Cujo), but this is pretty special. King has already made an indelible mark in the history of literature, cinema, television and pop culture in general, but now he has officially made an impact in the world of biology as well.
Stephen King Apparently Loves Night Swim… And I Just Have To Totally Disagree With Him Here
My personal tastes in fiction very often overlap with Stephen King’s – which isn’t exactly surprising given how much I love his books. Like King, I am a big fan of television shows like Fargo and Yellowjackets, and I totally agree with him about movies like the upcoming horror film Late Night With The Devil (which pull-quoted him in its first trailer and is headed to theaters next week). I generally love seeing him Tweet about what he’s watching because it provides wide exposure to terrific work… but his latest recommendation leaves me a bit baffled.
Writer/director Bryce McGuire’s Night Swim arrived in theaters earlier at the start of this year, and while it was bludgeoned by critics (evidenced by its 22 percent Rotten Tomatoes score) and mostly dismissed by audiences (making just $53.5 million during its worldwide theatrical run), it has found a fan in Stephen King. The author apparently missed the movie during its time playing on the big screen, but he caught up with it now that it’s available on PVOD, and he has a lot of affection for it. This past Monday, he posted on Twitter:
I loved THE NIGHT SWIM (Amazon Prime). It’s like a lost, low-budget Steven Spielberg film from Spielberg’s early period…say, after DUEL but before JAWS. Simple story, but…the cat on the diving board! And those creepy bunny slippers!
I’ll be frank here: I have no goddamn clue what Stephen King is talking about here, and I find myself wondering if the version of the movie that’s been made available digitally is different than the one that was in theaters. The film that I watched back in January was a mess that was more unintentionally funny than scary – though, as I note in my 1.5-star Night Swim CinemaBlend review, I went into it with higher-than-recommended expectations courtesy of M3GAN being such a big hit in the same release window in 2023.
I have no interest in beating up on the film a la the critics of The Marvels that Stephen King chastised late last year, so I’ll instead choose to chalk this one up to the mysteries of subjectivity. Every movie is somebody’s favorite movie; a work that is dismissed by one person can connect with another on a deep level. I found next to nothing to appreciate in Night Swim, but King clearly found a whole lot.
If you find yourself curious as to which side of the fence you’ll personally land on with the 2024 feature, it’s very easy to do so – and one of the positives I’ll highlight is that it will only take 98 minutes of your life to watch it. As specifically noted by Stephen King, you can watch it on Amazon Prime Video, but it’s also available from Google Play and Fandango At Home (formally known as Vudu).
Recommendation Of The Week: “The Monkey”
Acknowledging Stephen King’s appreciation for Night Swim, I decided to try and pick a short story for my Recommendation Of The Week that features some parallels. Digging around, I can’t say that swimming pools have ever been a big focus of his work, but when it comes to evil water, “The Monkey” fits the bill quite nicely.
Featured in the 1985 collection Skeleton Crew (though first published in a 1980 issue of Gallery), “The Monkey” spins the haunting tale of a father who is horrified when his two sons discover a cymbal-banging monkey when they are digging around the attic of their deceased great uncle. His horror stems from childhood memories and reflections on the toy being cursed: whenever it bangs its cymbals together, somebody dies. The bit about evil water admittedly doesn’t come into play until the end of the story, but I won’t spoil it all for you here and instead just encourage you to seek it out.
That wraps up this edition of The King Beat, but a fresh column will be waiting for you here on CinemaBlend next Thursday. Meanwhile you can learn about all of the King projects in the works with our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide and learn how to build the Ultimate Stephen King Collection.