What with even the most obscure, and microscopic installments of Stephen King’s oeuvre getting the big screen treatment these days, it’s becoming increasingly more challenging to decode which Master of Horror adaptation to keep tabs on. Granted, there’s been one reworking continually pinging on the radar – IT: Chapter Two – but another conversion might’ve just stolen Pennywise’s thunder.
According to Deadline, 20th Century Fox is close to acquiring a pitch package centered on an adaptation of the Stephen King short story, The Boogeyman, penned by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods – the writing duo behind monstrous box office success, A Quiet Place – and produced by Shawn Levy, Dan Levine and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps (Stranger Things).
Initially published in 1973, and subsequently released as part of the 1978 short story collection Night Shift, The Boogeyman shadows Lester Billings, a man who’s lost three young children, all of whom cried “Boogeyman” before being left alone.
Having received quite the endorsement from King himself for their compositional effort on A Quiet Place – which earned an astounding $328 million on a production budget of just $17 million – Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are currently absorbed in the post-production of their very own fright fest, entitled Haunt. However, the pair’s expected to return for A Quiet Place 2, the sequel to their masterful silent horror film, co-written alongside star John Krasinski.
Apart from the official announcement during Paramount Pictures’ presentation at CinemaCon earlier this year, though, speculation regarding the sequel has been, no pun intended, silent. Last we heard, Krasinski was spitballing with Deadline, but at this early stage of development, everything is pretty non-committal. Should that change, though, we’ll be sure to let you know.