Stephen King’s 1975 horror novel Salem’s Lot is getting a big-screen adaptation next year. The author’s been on a tear lately with his various books and short stories being adapted, from It and Pet Sematary. Heck, another one just got announced on Friday. Salem’s is the story of a writer returning to his hometown to get inspiration for his next book, only to find there’s a vampire on the prowl. And it can’t be a horror movie, or a King work, without some plucky kids involved in the plot!
The Hollywood Reporter announced the three kid actors who will really be in the thick of it. Actors Jordan Preston Carter, Nicholas Crovetti, and Cade Woodward are set to play three of the endangered kids of Jerusalem’s Lot. Carter will play 12-year-old Mark Petrie, who will wind up one of the key players in the anti-vampire team; Crovetti has the role of kid vampire Danny Glick, conscripted into converting the rest of the town; and Woodward will step in as Danny’s missing younger brother Ralph. The trio joins the ensemble cast featuring Lewis Pullman as author Ben Mears and Pilou Asbæk as the vampire himself, Kurt Barlow.
Between their respective filmographies, all three actors aren’t new to having their lives endangered. Carter is one of the leads of HBO Max’s DMZ miniseries based on the DC comic about America cut off from the rest of the world and turned into a warzone. Crovetti’s other horror credits include the upcoming remake of 2014 Austrian flick Goodnight Mommy. Woodward’s been through the wringer the most: not only was he the kid who got snatched up by aliens in the opening of A Quiet Place, he was one of the Barton kids who got dusted in Avengers: Endgame. Tragic, but at least he’s back for Hawkeye!
Salem’s Lot has been brought to live-action multiple times since it was first published in 1975, but previous attempts were relegated to TV, like Rob Lowe’s 2004 version for TNT or the 1979's CBS miniseries. (There was even a sequel to the latter from 1987, directed by the late Larry Cohen.) This is its first time as an actual film, and it’s got quite a pedigree behind it, with Gary Dauberman, who previously wrote the It duology and multiple films in the Conjuring universe, writing and directing the adaptation. Here’s hoping it’s pretty good, and if it’s not, Hollywood will just have to adapt one of the other 1,378 things King’s written in his life.
Salem’s Lot releases on September 9, 2022.
Correction 10/2/2021, 12:30 p.m. ET: A previous version of this post misstated that Larry King directed the 1987 Salem’s Lot sequel when it was actually Larry Cohen, and that Richard Staker was the vampire when it was Kurt Barlow. Both have been updated.
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