The Stephen King adaptation flood continues! The Boogeyman was just announced in November, but the Hulu movie is already about to start production—and it’s found two of its stars. Chris Messina (Birds of Prey) and Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets) are the first to sign on for the probably terrifying film.
The Boogeyman is based on a story from King’s 1978 collection Night Shift, which has been fertile ground for adaptations; 10 of its stories have become movies or films. In the story, a man tells his psychiatrist the story of the boogeyman, who murdered his children. The adaptation, though, seems to be changing it up a bit. Deadline explains, “The story follows a teenage girl who’s still reeling from the tragic death of their mother and finds herself and her brother plagued by a sadistic presence in their house and struggle to get their grieving father to pay attention before it’s too late.”
Presumably, Thatcher will play the teenage girl and Messina the grieving father, but Deadline’s announcement doesn’t specify their roles. Along with her role in Showtime’s surprise hit Yellowjackets, Thatcher appeared in The Book of Boba Fett (above) as Drash, the leader of a speeder-bike gang who are into body modification with droid parts.
Messina has been a steady figure in film and TV for decades; you might have seen him in Sharp Objects or The Mindy Project or The Newsroom or Six Feet Under, among many other things, but comics fans probably know him best as Birds of Prey‘s memorable Victor Zsasz.
Rob Savage (Host, Dashcam) is directing The Boogeyman, which has Stranger Things and Shadow and Bone executive producer Shawn Levy among its producers. The film has had a handful of screenwriters; Deadline says “Mark Heyman has been writing the script after Scott Beck & Bryan Woods and Akela Cooper wrote the original drafts.” No release date has been announced.
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