When there’s a new Stephen King book out, odds are good that adaptation news will follow. And such is the case with King’s new (and already bestselling) novel Fairy Tale, which has been picked up for adaptation by director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy). Greengrass will write, direct, and produce the movie version, which does not have a studio attached—yet.
As Deadline reports, “King is a fan of Greengrass’s films and has granted him the option — at the usual $1 against a healthy backend — for an epic tale that follows a 17-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a terrifying world where good and evil are at war.”
The book summary introduces the story like this:
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Fairy Tale
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is 17, he meets a dog named Radar and his aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it.
Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world.
Fairy Tale is, of course, only one of many King adaptations in the works or nearly here (Netflix’s iPhone thriller Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is just around the corner). No casting or release date has been announced.
