2017 has been a bumper year for Stephen King. A blockbuster adaptation of The Dark Tower is due to hit cinemas this summer (though now slightly later), Andres Muschietti’s take on It is coming in September and J.J. Abrams is set to launch a Hulu series called Castle Rock that creates a ‘Stephen King universe.’ Now. you can add another to the pile with Throttle, which has just been optioned by Emilie Gladstone and his A Bigger Board Productions.
Co-authored with his son Joe Hill, the story, inspired by Richard Matheson’s Duel, is about a motorcycle gang called ‘The Tribe’ racing through the desert after a meth deal goes wrong. The gang, desperate for a way to get their money back, find themselves pursued by a demonic killer truck that will stop at nothing to murder them all. Apparently, there’s room in all this for a touching father/son story, too, which is kind of cute given the novel’s co-authoring.
John Scott III, writer of the not very good 2015 Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie film, Maggie is to pen the screenplay. A director is yet to be confirmed, though anyone will inevitably find their work compared to a young, hungry pre-Jaws Steven Spielberg, who made an impression on studio bosses with his excellent adaptation of Matheson’s story.
For the sounds of it, this has the potential to be a high-octane extravaganza – I’m a huge fan of Spielberg’s Duel and I’d love to see a similarly ambitious young director take the reins on Throttle. It might be a while before we get anything more on this one, but feel free to let us know who you’d like to see get behind the camera by dropping a comment in the usual place.