Russell Crowe attached to star in Stephen King adaptation Revival

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

It's been ten months since we first heard that THE FAULT IN OUR STARS filmmaker Josh Boone, who has long been developing an epic adaptation of Stephen King's classic novel THE STAND, was setting his sights on making an adaptation of a different King tome, REVIVAL. We haven't heard much about the REVIVAL movie since that initial announcement, though, aside from a rumor that Samuel L. Jackson was circling the lead role and a quote from Boone where he said it was "ready to go".

In a new interview with Creative Screenwriting, Boone discusses the various film and TV projects he has in the works, including REVIVAL, THE STAND ("which I'm still involved in, and which once again is a long process because it's such an expensive movie") and the horror-leaning X-MEN spin-off NEW MUTANTS, with passing references to a Philip K. Dick adaptation and a television adaptation of Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show, which he's working on with Stephen King's son Owen.

Boone's next directorial effort will be NEW MUTANTS, but he intends to go into production on REVIVAL "right after". In this interview he also reveals that there is an actor attached to star in the movie… and it isn't Samuel L. Jackson.

The first reference to REVIVAL comes when Boone talks about the difference between working on a big studio project like NEW MUTANTS and developing something on your own, as he did with REVIVAL: 

I've had very, very different screenwriting experiences based on how the project comes together. For example, I have a good relationship with Stephen King, so when I wanted to adapt his novel Revival I really just went and asked him. I was able to write it in a very pleasant bubble and we attached Russell Crowe. 

… I wrote Revival it in a bubble in a month, did a rewrite a few months later that took two weeks, and haven't touched it since. We just went and put the money and cast together. It's certainly the better way to do it, but to get the opportunity to do these big properties you have to go through a much longer process to get to the same end result.

With its release expected to come some time in the spring of 2018, NEW MUTANTS will probably start filming quite soon. Once it's complete, hopefully Boone will be able to roll right into making REVIVAL, which will apparently star Russell Crowe (pictured above in THE MUMMY).

In case you haven't read the King novel, this is the story Boone and Crowe will be bringing to life: 

In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.

Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.