Jason Blum’s beyond successful horror company Blumhouse and American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy are joining creepy forces for Netflix’s upcoming feature adaptation of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, one of the four creepy novellas in Stephen King’s recent collection, If It Bleeds, which was published in April.
The pair will reportedly produce, while filmmaker John Lee Hancock — known for writing the underrated Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the awful The Blind Side, and the forgettable Snow White and the Huntsman, in addition to directing The Founder and Saving Mr. Banks — will write and direct.
Blumhouse is also adapting a reboot of King’s Firestarter, with Drew Barrymore, star of the book’s 1984 movie adaptation, set to executive produce.
The movie will be Netflix’s fourth Stephen King feature adaptation, after the wonderful 1922, the twisted Gerald’s Game, and In the Tall Grass.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone follows Craig, a small-town Mainer (cause everything is in Maine) who befriends the titular retiree as a child, eventually buying him his first iPhone. When Mr. Harrigan dies, Craig makes the critical mistake of calling his late friend’s number one last time to leave him a voicemail, a nice gesture if it wasn’t for the reply texts he starts receiving from beyond the grave.
