Gary Dauberman to helm adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Another Stephen King adaptation is taking another step towards the big-screen as THR has reported that Gary Dauberman, who made his directorial debut with ANNABELLE COMES HOME, has closed a deal to direct a feature-film adaptation of SALEM'S LOT.

The story of SALEM'S LOT follows a writer who returns to his hometown of Salem's Lot in order to write about the Marsten House, an old mansion. Once there, he discovers that the mansion has been bought by the mysterious Kurt Barlow and comes to realize that the townspeople are being turned into vampires. Together with a small group, the writer attempts to halt the spread of the vampires and confront Barlow. Gary Dauberman has actually already been involved with the SALEM'S LOT project for some time, as he signed on to pen the script close to a year ago. The project is slated to be produced by James Wan, Roy Lee, and Mark Wolper. In addition to writing and directing ANNABELLE COMES HOME, Dauberman is also known for penning IT and IT: CHAPTER TWO, as well as ANNABELLE, ANNABELLE: CREATION, and THE NUN. Dauberman gave a small tease about SALEM'S LOT last year:

I like to be as true to the story as I possibly can until it gets a little too unwieldy for a movie. I’m very, very excited to be a part of that and tackle it. It hasn’t had the big screen treatment yet, which is how I felt about It. It’s so fun to play around with vampires and make something truly scary with vampires. I haven’t seen that in a long, long time, and I’m excited for people to see it.

While this will be the first time that SALEM'S LOT has been adapted for the big-screen, the story has been adapted to the small-screen twice before, once in 1979 for a mini-series starring David Soul (which spawned a sequel) and again in 2004 with Rob Lowe taking on the main role.